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PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

News in brief - May 19, 2008

High court upholds lethal injections

High court upholds lethal injections

The U.S. Supreme Court last month upheld the constitutionality of Kentucky's three-drug lethal-injection execution protocol. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion that the execution method does not pose a "substantial risk of serious harm," even though there have been cases in which prisoners were not properly anesthetized and may have been aware when paralytic and heart-stopping drugs were administered.

Roberts and other justices noted that changing protocols to require physicians or other health professionals' participation to ensure that drugs are administered properly could effectively end the death penalty, because the American Medical Association and many other organized medicine groups say doctors and allied health professionals should not take part in executions.

Last year, federal district court judges ordered Missouri and California prison officials to involve doctors in executions. But officials in both states said they had difficulty finding doctors to participate. Subsequent rulings in those cases said doctors do not have to participate. Kentucky and Illinois are the only states with laws explicitly forbidding physicians from taking part in executions.

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