N.C. House bill would loosen execution restrictions

Although 149 criminals sit on North Carolina’s death row, not one inmate in the state has been executed in nine years.

A bill in the N.C. legislature seeks to restart executions by making changes to the protocol that has been one of the major obstacles to the process for nearly a decade.

House Bill 774, which was passed by the N.C. House and is currently under consideration in the Senate, would allow medical professionals other than licensed physicians to oversee executions.

Under the bill, the presence of physician assistants, registered nurses, nurse practitioners and emergency medical technicians would also suffice to perform a legal execution.

Brian Bechtol, a North Carolina physician assistant and owner of Urgent Care of Mountain View in Hickory, N.C., said physician assistants are just as qualified to perform an execution.

“I think it’s good that our roles are expanding. I just don’t like the topic that is being discussed right now,” he said.

“No matter what your personal belief is, and I absolutely believe in the death penalty, as a medical professional — where we swear to save lives when possible — that sort of goes against our ethical principles.”

The American Medical Association assists with the credentialing of physician assistants as well as physicians. The association strongly encourages physicians not participate in executions.

In 2007, the North Carolina Medical Board banned providers from giving lethal injection to inmates.

Although the N.C. Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that the board could not take away physicians’ licenses for participating, physicians have since been highly discouraged from doing so.

UNC political science professor Frank Baumgartner said the attempt by legislators behind the bill to move forward with the death penalty goes against national trends.

According to his research, only 43 individuals have been executed of 401 death sentences in North Carolina since 1977.

Compared to the amount of money and time spent on the trial and appeals process, he said the sentence is a wasteful process.

He also said the inherent flaws in the justice system are extremely problematic when applied to executing individuals.

“Why would anyone want to bring this beast back from the dead?” he said.

Even if the law did pass, the executions would not resume due to litigation obstacles, including cases involving the repealed Racial Justice Act and nationwide concerns with the constitutionality of lethal injection.

The bill would still require a licensed physician to be on the premises to announce the person dead.

Tarrah Callahan, executive director of the N.C. Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, pointed to the two exonerations in North Carolina last year as proof of the problems with the justice system.

Half-brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were declared innocent and released in September 2014 after serving 30 years in prison. McCollum spent those three decades on death row.

“The governor hasn’t even made steps on granting them a pardon. And here we are, instead talking about how to rush executions to restart,” Callahan said.

“It just doesn’t match.”

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