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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Georgia's Doctors and the Ethics of Execution

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The ethical dilemmas raised by Monday's execution of a mentally disabled man call attention to the role of doctors as executioners.

Despite international human rights appeals and a conflicting Supreme Court ruling, on Monday Georgia intends to execute a mentally disabled man convicted of two murders. When the lethal drug is pushed, the Medical Association of Georgia will be standing behind the doctor who will be making one of Georgia's most questionable executions possible. The medical association failed to enact its own membership ethics code for seven years and accredited the prison where the death will occur, leaving the organization morally linked to this grave moment.

Though the European Union has intentionally created lethal injection drug shortages as part of its strategy to cripple America's capacity for capital punishment, the Peach State has persevered past this pharmaceutical blockade and will instead employ a single agent, pentobarbital. Pentoparbital's lone use means a longer and more uncertain death for the condemned man, Warren Hill, who will drift into an ever-deepening coma under the auspices of Dr. Carlo Musso and his team of team of doctors and nurses from Rainbow Medical Associates. Rainbow Medical shares the same address and the same key personnel as CorrectHealth, Dr. Musso's contract correctional health care company which provides medical services to jails and prisons throughout Georgia. CorrectHealth personnel both mend prisoners and finish them off.

Doctors who participate in executions in Georgia and other states have survived repeated challenges to their medical licenses lodged by anti-death penalty activists. Capital punishment is legal, and death penalty states provide added immunity (and anonymity if desired) to cooperating medical personnel.


Source: Ford Vox, The Atlantic, July 20, 2012. Ford Vox, MD, is an Atlantic correspondent and a physician.

Related article:
Death Penalty News: U.S.: Nurses' Role in Capital Punishment
Jul 17, 2012
The ANA is opposed to all forms of participation by nurses in capital punishment, by whatever means, whether under civil or military legal authority. Participation in capital punishment is inconsistent with the ethical precepts of ...
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