States turn to Texas for execution guidance:

States turn to Texas for execution guidance: Kevin Johnson and Richard Willing have this article in USA Today, entitled "States turn to Texas for execution guidance: Advice sought amid debate over executions."

Excerpt:
...The trips by officials from other states and the federal government who visit Texas generally are not publicized. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons says that such trips usually are planned around a scheduled execution in Texas, so that the visiting officials can shadow the entire procedure.

Seats also are reserved for visiting officials in the "chemical room," where an anonymous executioner starts the flow of the lethal drugs to the prisoner through intravenous lines.

"Where else would you go to learn that?" asks Larry Fitzgerald, a former Texas prisons spokesman who witnessed 219 executions in eight years with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

...Jonathan Groner, associate professor of surgery at Ohio State University's College of Medicine and Public Health, says it would not be uncommon for state officials to gather "the family recipes" from jurisdictions where executions are most common.

"The problem is that the process is so secretive," Groner says, referring in part to the backgrounds and oversight of executioners. Because physician ethics prohibit doctors from overseeing executions, Groner calls the lethal injection process a "medical charade."

"Lethal injection involves medical technology," he says, "but does not include medical expertise."