Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Not For Lack of Trying
The California Death penalty is put off one more day. But only due to the ethics of medical professionals:
"We were not able to find a licensed professional that was willing to inject medication intravenously, ending the life of a human being," San Quentin spokesman Vernell Crittendon said Tuesday evening.

[...]

Prison officials rescheduled the execution for Tuesday night after settling on the second choice — killing Morales with a single injection of the sedative. No other state executes inmates under that procedure, which would take about half an hour to work compared to about 10 minutes with the three-drug method.

Fogel approved that plan Tuesday afternoon, but said the sedative must be administered in the execution chamber by a person who was licensed by the state to inject medications intravenously, a group that includes doctors, nurses, dentists and other medical technicians.

Yet with only hours to go before the death warrant on Morales expired at 11:59 p.m., San Quentin could not find a licensed professional despite "exploring all the options available," Crittendon said.
My hats off to medical professionals who stayed true to their ethics. Society at large could take a lesson from the hippocratic oath.

But never fear. I suspect the legal eagles are burning the midnight oil to come up with alternatives. There's always converting the gas chamber back, to a gas chamber.....
Written at 8:46 AM by Greyhair.
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