In 1984, Robert Moorman murdered his adoptive mother and chopped her up into pieces. But in November of last year, Moorman received a quintuple heart bypass surgery at the taxpayers' expense. He was executed three months later.
Why does the state pay for healthcare for prison inmates?
"Because there's no choice," said Daniel Pachoda, who is the legal director for the Phoenix office of the ACLU.
He said he can't explain what happened to Robert Moorman, but the requirements of the death penalty may help explain it.
"That is a quirk in the law that people have to be medically and physically competent before they're allowed to be executed," said Pachoda.
But according to Pachoda, it would be a mistake to think that all inmates get the same treatment.
The ACLU recently sued the state, citing dozens of cases where basic medical treatment or antibiotics would have saved the lives of inmates or spared them from serious illness.
Lynette Barrett says the Moorman case does not make any sense to her.
"It's really hard to see somebody they're going to execute in three months...what was the point of the bypass?" she asked.
Department of Corrections officials could not discuss any specific inmate medical questions, but they did say medical professionals are the ones who make the decisions about healthcare for inmates. And they insist that all inmates receive the same constitutionally required medical care.
Source: kpho.com, May 15, 2012
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