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New report on the role of medical boards regulating doctor involvement in executions

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader alerted me to this new study of state ethical codes which concludes that doctors in most states need not fear professional discipline for participating in executions. Here is the study's abstract: The recent increase in calls for physician participation in lethal injection executions is likely to place a spotlight on state medical boards, the only entities empowered to discipline doctors for ethical violations.  This article begins by recounting the history of physician participation in lethal injection executions, as well as the opposition of most medical professional organizations to the practice.  The current state of the law suggests, however, that the role of state medical boards is quite circumscribed, at least in the majority of states with death penalty statutes that appear to contemplate some level of physician participation in executions...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 28, 2010 (boomark / email).