Arizona must keep man alive to carry-out execution

Here is a bizarre death penalty scenario. Arizona prison policy requires death-row inmates facing execution be kept alive until the last minute before execution by lethal injection.

The execution protocol requires that a cardiac defibrillator "be readily available on site in the event that the inmate goes into cardiac arrest at any time prior to dispensing the chemicals; trained medical staff shall make every effort to revive the inmate should this occur."

That's right--in Arizona prison officials must do everything possible to keep a death row inmate alive so the state can kill him.

This week death-row inmate Robert Moormann, who is scheduled to be executed February 29, was transported to an unnamed hospital after falling ill at the state prison in Florence, according to the Arizona Republic . He has a history of health problems and was hospitalized twice last fall, first for an appendectomy and later for a quintuple heart bypass.

In 1984, Moormann was already imprisoned in Florence when he was granted a "compassionate furlough" to visit with his adoptive mother at a motel near the prison. During the visit, he killed her and dismembered her, dumping her body in garbage cans, reported Republic.

To read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2012/02/16/20120216arizona-inmate-facing-execution-hospitalized-over-illness.html#ixzz1mq0KuaHQ