Executions, Doctors, The U.S. Supreme Court, And The Breath Of Kings

This new post by I. Glenn Cohen appears on the Health Affairs Blog, as part of a series stemming from the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 30, 2015.

The relationship between medicine and capital punishment has been a persistent feature of this past year in health law, both at the level of medical ethics and Supreme Court review.

Our story starts in Oklahoma, where the execution of Clayton Lockett was botched on April 28, 2014. National Institutes of Health (NIH) bioethicist Seema Shah described the events in question:

Oklahoma was administering a new execution protocol that used the drug midazolam, a sedative that is often used in combination with other anesthetic agents. Oklahoma had never used this drug in executions before; in fact, only a few states had experience with using the drug in lethal injection. Florida had previously used this drug in lethal injections, but with a dose five times higher than what was indicated in Oklahoma’s protocol. […]

See the full post here.

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff

The Petrie-Flom Center staff often posts updates, announcements, and guests posts on behalf of others.

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