Post by CCADP on Apr 16, 2006 14:42:52 GMT -5
tate Proposes Using Device, Not Doctors, In Execution. (National Desk)(lethal injection) Adam Liptak.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 The New York Times Company
North Carolina officials, who had been ordered by a federal judge to identify medical personnel to supervise an execution next week, told him instead yesterday that they had bought and intended to use a device to monitor the brain waves of the condemned inmate.
The company that makes the device called such use inappropriate and said it had sold the device to the state in error on Tuesday.
A lawyer for the inmate said the state's response to the judge, Malcolm J. Howard of Federal District Court in Greenville, N.C., amounted to defiance.
''Judge Howard asked for the identity of qualified, trained medical personnel,'' said the lawyer, J. Donald Cowan Jr. ''They gave him a machine.''
The dispute arose against the backdrop of two recent judicial decisions requiring that executions be supervised by medical personnel. The decisions cited evidence that condemned inmates might have suffered extreme pain from the chemicals used in lethal injections.
But medical codes of ethics prohibit doctors and other health professionals from participating in executions.
Officials in California had to call off an execution there because they could not find doctors willing to participate. Yesterday's filing in North Carolina suggests similar difficulties.
A spokeswoman for the state attorney general declined to comment.
The device described in the filings, a bispectral index monitor, is in any event not a suitable substitute for medical monitoring, its maker and prominent anesthesiologists said.
''It's not a stand-alone device,'' said Dr. Scott D. Kelley, the medical director of Aspect Medical Systems, which makes the device and said it inadvertently sold one to a prison hospital in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday. ''It's another information source. It turns brainwaves into clinically useful information to help anesthesia professionals guide their monitoring of the patient.''
Using only the device to discern the potential suffering of condemned inmates, Dr. Kelley said, ''is taking a leap of faith I simply cannot endorse.''
Dr. Kelley said his company, based in Newton, Mass., took no position on the death penalty or on executions by lethal injection. But the sale of the device on Tuesday was, he said, ''a regrettable system failure.''
''Any use of this technology that is not in a health care facility is outside the intended use of the technology,'' he said.
Dr. Orin F. Guidry, the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said the device, which costs about $5,000, was used by anesthesiologists only in conjunction with other forms of monitoring.
''One should not depend on a single modality,'' Dr. Guidry said. ''It has to be integrated into the clinical practice.''
The anesthesiologists society opposes the participation of doctors in executions.
''Physicians are healers, not executioners,'' the society said in a statement.
Lawyers for the condemned inmate, Willie Brown Jr., have until Friday to respond to the state's submission. Judge Howard has said he will enter a stay of execution if he is not satisfied with the state's response.
Judge Howard's order, issued Friday, was prompted by concerns that the series of three chemicals used to execute inmates could cause excruciating pain if the first one, a barbiturate, did not render the inmate unconscious.
The second chemical paralyzes the subject, suffocating him. The third stops his heart, delivering severe pain in the process.
Judge Howard had ordered state officials to submit the ''plans and qualifications'' of ''medical personnel who are qualified to ensure that'' Mr. Brown would become unconscious and remain so.
Should Mr. Brown ''exhibit effects of consciousness at any time during the execution,'' Judge Howard wrote, ''such personnel shall immediately provide appropriate medical care so as to ensure'' that he was ''immediately returned to an unconscious state.''
In its filing yesterday, state officials said that the otherwise unspecified ''execution team'' would not administer the second or third chemicals until the monitor showed that Mr. Brown was unconscious.
Should he awaken, the filing said, more barbiturate would be administered until the monitor again showed unconsciousness.
Article A144420072
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 The New York Times Company
North Carolina officials, who had been ordered by a federal judge to identify medical personnel to supervise an execution next week, told him instead yesterday that they had bought and intended to use a device to monitor the brain waves of the condemned inmate.
The company that makes the device called such use inappropriate and said it had sold the device to the state in error on Tuesday.
A lawyer for the inmate said the state's response to the judge, Malcolm J. Howard of Federal District Court in Greenville, N.C., amounted to defiance.
''Judge Howard asked for the identity of qualified, trained medical personnel,'' said the lawyer, J. Donald Cowan Jr. ''They gave him a machine.''
The dispute arose against the backdrop of two recent judicial decisions requiring that executions be supervised by medical personnel. The decisions cited evidence that condemned inmates might have suffered extreme pain from the chemicals used in lethal injections.
But medical codes of ethics prohibit doctors and other health professionals from participating in executions.
Officials in California had to call off an execution there because they could not find doctors willing to participate. Yesterday's filing in North Carolina suggests similar difficulties.
A spokeswoman for the state attorney general declined to comment.
The device described in the filings, a bispectral index monitor, is in any event not a suitable substitute for medical monitoring, its maker and prominent anesthesiologists said.
''It's not a stand-alone device,'' said Dr. Scott D. Kelley, the medical director of Aspect Medical Systems, which makes the device and said it inadvertently sold one to a prison hospital in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday. ''It's another information source. It turns brainwaves into clinically useful information to help anesthesia professionals guide their monitoring of the patient.''
Using only the device to discern the potential suffering of condemned inmates, Dr. Kelley said, ''is taking a leap of faith I simply cannot endorse.''
Dr. Kelley said his company, based in Newton, Mass., took no position on the death penalty or on executions by lethal injection. But the sale of the device on Tuesday was, he said, ''a regrettable system failure.''
''Any use of this technology that is not in a health care facility is outside the intended use of the technology,'' he said.
Dr. Orin F. Guidry, the president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said the device, which costs about $5,000, was used by anesthesiologists only in conjunction with other forms of monitoring.
''One should not depend on a single modality,'' Dr. Guidry said. ''It has to be integrated into the clinical practice.''
The anesthesiologists society opposes the participation of doctors in executions.
''Physicians are healers, not executioners,'' the society said in a statement.
Lawyers for the condemned inmate, Willie Brown Jr., have until Friday to respond to the state's submission. Judge Howard has said he will enter a stay of execution if he is not satisfied with the state's response.
Judge Howard's order, issued Friday, was prompted by concerns that the series of three chemicals used to execute inmates could cause excruciating pain if the first one, a barbiturate, did not render the inmate unconscious.
The second chemical paralyzes the subject, suffocating him. The third stops his heart, delivering severe pain in the process.
Judge Howard had ordered state officials to submit the ''plans and qualifications'' of ''medical personnel who are qualified to ensure that'' Mr. Brown would become unconscious and remain so.
Should Mr. Brown ''exhibit effects of consciousness at any time during the execution,'' Judge Howard wrote, ''such personnel shall immediately provide appropriate medical care so as to ensure'' that he was ''immediately returned to an unconscious state.''
In its filing yesterday, state officials said that the otherwise unspecified ''execution team'' would not administer the second or third chemicals until the monitor showed that Mr. Brown was unconscious.
Should he awaken, the filing said, more barbiturate would be administered until the monitor again showed unconsciousness.
Article A144420072