The realities of a doctored execution

This interesting article from North Carolina provides a rare inside look into some of the realities and challenges of trying to incorporate medical personnel into execution protocols.  (My students had a great debate on this very interesting topic at my class blog.)  Here is how the article begins:

A prison doctor stood in a small observation room near a brain-wave machine during the state’s past two executions.   He said in an interview this week that as the inmates died just a few feet away, he did not monitor their level of consciousness, and prison officials never asked him to, despite a federal judge’s order requiring that.

The question of whether Dr. Obi Umesi can stand in the observation room with a heart monitor and brain-wave monitor and not track a dying man’s vital signs is at the center of a legal dilemma that has delayed five executions in this state.  If Umesi monitored the dying man’s consciousness, he might have violated his profession’s ethical rules.  If he did not, the state would be violating the judge’s order.