Judge: Board can't discipline doctors

A Superior Court judge ruled that the N.C. Medical Board does not have the right to discipline doctors who participate in executions.

In a six-page ruling, Judge Donald Stephens said the state's obligation to have a doctor present to give advice trumps the board's authority to ensure doctors are acting ethically, Titan Barksdale reports.

The board had said the doctors could be disciplined because executions violate their oath to preserve life. That decision led to a de facto moratorium that legislators declined to intervene in.

The N.C. Department of Correction and the medical board are adversaries in a lawsuit over the board's ethics policy that Stephens ruled on.

It's not clear at this point whether the ruling means executions can start up. But it was the first definitive word from a judge on the complex legal matters that put executions at a standstill for most of this year.