Condemned inmate could face ‘surgery without anesthesia’ if good vein is elusive, lawyers say

By JIM SALTER
Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Attorneys for a condemned Missouri man say the state’s execution protocol allows for “surgery without anesthesia” if the typical process of finding a suitable vein to inject the lethal drug doesn’t work. Brian Dorsey is scheduled for execution Tuesday for killing his cousin and her husband in 2006. A federal appeal focuses on how Missouri injects pentobarbital. The written protocol offers no guidance on how far the execution team can go to find a suitable vein. Attorneys say that leaves open the possibility of an invasive “cutdown procedure,” which involves an incision. But the state says such a procedure is “rarely, if ever, used under Missouri’s execution protocol.”