Physicians, Medical Ethics, and Execution by Lethal Injection
Petrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen has coauthored a new opinion piece now available through JAMA. From the article:
In an opinion dissenting from a Supreme Court decision to deny review in a death penalty case, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun famously wrote, “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”1 In the wake of the recent botched execution by lethal injection in Oklahoma, however, a group of eminent legal professionals known as the Death Penalty Committee of The Constitution Project has published a sweeping set of 39 recommendations that not only tinker with, but hope to fix, the multitude of problems that affect this method of capital punishment.
Many of the recommendations this committee makes with regard to legal and administrative reforms appear worthwhile and reasonable. Their final recommendation, however, concerns the role of the medical profession in performing lethal injection. It states: “Jurisdictions should ensure that qualified medical personnel are present at executions and responsible for all medically-related elements of executions.”
In particular, the recommendation specifies that “Execution team members…are licensed, practicing doctors, nurses or emergency medical technicians who are responsible for performing functions in their day-to-day practice that are similar to those they will perform at the execution.” Regardless of this committee’s recommendations, physician participation in capital punishment is an ethical dilemma that the profession of medicine must address. [...]
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bioethics criminal law doctor patient relationship end of life health law policy i. glenn cohen