One of the gambits used by the anti-death-penalty crowd is to claim that the Constitution requires doctors to be involved in lethal injection to ensure it is not cruel, and then turn around and claim that medical ethics forbids what the Constitution requires. The resulting Catch-22 shuts down executions, at least temporarily. The North Carolina Supreme Court ended that effort in that state Friday.

Section 15-190 requires a physician to be present at the execution of a condemned inmate. The General Assembly did not include such a requirement simply to have a 'professional' present at the time of the execution without that individual supplying some sort of professional assistance.... 

Thus, the General Assembly has specifically envisioned some sort of medical participation in the execution process, and [the Medical Board's] Position Statement runs afoul of N.C.G.S. § 15-190 by completely prohibiting physician participation in executions. While defendant would retain disciplinary power over a licensed medical doctor who participates in an execution, see N.C.G.S. § 90-14, defendant may not discipline or threaten discipline against its licensees solely for participating in the execution alone. To allow defendant to discipline its licensees for mere participation would elevate the created Medical Board over the creator General Assembly.

The case is North Carolina Dept. of Correction v. North Carolina Medical Board, No. 51PA08.