Greedy Trial Lawyer
Death By Lethal Injection -The Missouri Approach
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Some patients who are fighting to live think their doctors are less than qualified to provide the best care. It turns out that most of the inmates on Death Row in Missouri who were only hoping to die as peacefully as possible were at the mercy of a doctor who may have been unqualified to provide any medical care.
Doctor overseeing executions had history of lawsuits, reprimands
From behind a screen in a Kansas City court June 5, the doctor who devised and supervised the state's lethal injection procedure described it in terms so troubling to a federal judge that he ordered it halted.The doctor testified anonymously that he is dyslexic. That he sometimes confused names of drugs. That he sometimes gave inconsistent testimony. That the injection protocol was not written down, and that he made changes on his "independent authority."
And that turns out not to be all.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has confirmed the man behind the screen was Dr. Alan R. Doerhoff, 62, of Jefferson City. Two Missouri hospitals won't allow him to practice within their walls. He has been sued for malpractice more than 20 times, by his own estimate, and was publicly reprimanded in 2003 by the state Board of Healing Arts for failing to disclose malpractice suits to a hospital where he was treating patients.
It is unclear how much U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. was told before he strongly questioned the doctor's qualifications - and whether Missouri was delivering unconstitutionally cruel punishment in its death chamber
A deeper dive into court records shows that Doerhoff made false statements in at least two different court cases about his history of mistakes.
The article about Dr. Death By Injection details even more troubling revelations about his competency. In the process, the story raises the question of the competence of those who permitted him to be in this position.
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