The drugs currently used are Sodium Pentathol (a sedative), Pancuronium Bromide (to cause paralysis) and Potassium Chloride (to stop the heart). Inmates' attorneys and medical experts for both sides say that the second and third drugs are not required to kill an inmate -- a large enough dose of the barbiturate can be lethal -- and that the other two drugs are used mostly for the benefit of witnesses. The second drug prevents the inmate's body from moving, and the third quickly ends the inmate's life.
So. Apparently the doctor was just there to assist with the show . . . to make it look "pretty".
My question to the NC Medical Board, as someone with some small experience in the quagmires that the Board sets up (yet does not rescue its own from), is this:
How and why did the NC Medical Board let a doctor be put in the middle in the first place?
2 comments:
Was it a result of the old electric chair days where they might have to fry them twice?
BTW....seems that I asked about simply using the sedation in excess a few posts back...I still think it is a good idea.
Yes, you did MeB;-) And I noted that in my post.
If the state went back to the chair or the gas chamber I daresay the arguments regarding "cruel and unusual" would REALLY crank back up.
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