Marin County, Calif.
The execution of a convicted rapist and murderer was delayed at the last minute this week when two anesthesiologists refused to participate on ethical grounds. A federal judge had earlier ordered that the doctors be present to ensure that inmate Michael Angelo Morales would not be in undue pain from a lethal injection. But after the American Medical Association said anesthesiologists could not ethically sedate someone in order to have him killed, the two doctors withdrew. The execution was put on indefinite hold while the court considers whether lethal injections—the most common execution method in the country—amount to unconstitutional “cruel and unusual punishment.”
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