North Carolina considers limits on physicians' role in executions

The state medical board ponders a policy that would allow the disciplining of doctors who aid in capital punishment -- but would let them be present.

By Kevin B. O'Reilly, AMNews staff. Aug. 28, 2006.

The North Carolina Medical Board moved a step closer to punishing physicians who actively participate in executions, apparently the first board in the nation to do so.

The board's proposed position statement says it's OK for physicians to be present at an execution as North Carolina law requires, but that "any verbal or physical activity ... that facilitates the execution may be subject to disciplinary action." The proposed statement must be published in the Forum, the board's quarterly publication, for comments before a final approval vote. The next Forum is due out this fall, a North Carolina Medical Board spokeswoman said. The board has discretion over how long to wait before taking another vote.

Officials at the Federation of State Medical Boards said they were not aware of any other state medical board having addressed physician participation in executions in a position statement, and neither were any of the lawyers, doctors, medical society or medical board officials contacted for this story. The FSMB has no policy on the matter, and it has not been raised at any of the group's meetings.

The issue first came before the North Carolina board's policy committee in May after someone filed an anonymous complaint about a physician participating in an execution. The complaint centered on a report that during the April execution of Willie Brown Jr. a doctor and a nurse who routinely observe North Carolina executions used a brain-wave monitor to ensure that Brown was unconscious before officials administered paralytic and heart-stopping drugs.