"Death penalty hurdle remains," is the title of Michael Kiefer's Arizona Republic report.
Arizona has two executions scheduled in the next seven weeks, but it remains in question whether there is an executioner to carry them out.
Robert Moormann is scheduled to die on Feb. 29, and Robert Towery is scheduled for March 8. Both are convicted murderers who have been on death row for 20 years or more.
But the medical doctor who supervised the state's last five executions reportedly quit last October during a deposition for a lawsuit that questioned his fitness for the job.
The Arizona Department of Corrections will not say if another doctor has been hired, or if the last doctor actually quit. All its spokesmen will say is that the department will abide by court orders.
The state's court-approved protocol for lethal injection requires a medical team led by a licensed physician to administer the drugs.
The state's execution protocol is the reason the doctor supposedly quit.
And:
In Arizona, the identities of executioners are protected by state statute. During last month's bench trial over the protocol in federal court, the courtroom was sealed when the doctor testified.
What is clear from the redacted transcript of court testimony and depositions from last October and from 2009 is that the executioner is a former military doctor who served in Iraq, has emergency-room experience and now works in an outpatient clinic for the federal government.
He makes $160,000 a year, according to court records, and was paid $18,000 in cash for each of the executions he carried out.
Initially, he was introduced to the process by a former supervisor in a military setting who had been contacted by the Department of Corrections. He observed the execution of Robert Comer in 2007.
In fall 2010, he was contacted by Ryan and asked if he would take the job. He served as medical-team leader on five subsequent executions in 2010 and 2011
Earlier coverage of the lethal injection protocol in Arizona begins at the link.
"Ohio appeals to US Supreme Court on lethal injection policy after killer’s execution halted," is the AP report via the Washington Post.
The office of Attorney General Mike DeWine says that, without Supreme Court action, Ohio is in danger of having dozens of executions delayed on a case-by-case basis.
The appeal filed Friday asks the court to let Ohio put to death 45-year-old Charles Lorraine, sentenced to die for fatally stabbing an elderly couple in Warren in 1986.
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost halted Lorraine’s execution on Jan. 12, saying the state failed to properly document the drugs used in its last execution in November and failed to review the medical chart of the inmate who was put to death.
Ohio had already announced its intent to appeal Judge Frost's ruling, which had been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.
Related posts are in the lethal injection and physician indexes.
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