The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to Kentucky's executions by lethal injection on Jan. 7.
During the court challenges, officials have cloaked Doerhoff's identity in extraordinary secrecy. In the Missouri case, he was referred to as "John Doe One" and allowed to sit behind a screen during a deposition so that lawyers for condemned inmate Michael Taylor could not see him being questioned.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, November 16, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 49 words Type of Material: Correction
Lethal injection: An article in Thursday's Section A about a doctor who assists in executions overseen by the federal government gave the wrong first name of the associate director of the death penalty clinic at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. His name is Ty Alper, not Tyler.
In the latest challenge, Roane vs. Gonzales, filed in Washington, the inmates' lawyers refer to Doerhoff as "Protected Person No. 2." About a dozen lines in the October brief were redacted.
Doerhoff was cited as "Dr. Doe" in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Tuesday in the lethal injection challenge before the Supreme Court.
"The most well-known example of a jurisdiction entrusting its execution administration to an incompetent individual is the infamous 'Dr. Doe' in Missouri," says a brief written by lawyers from the death penalty clinic at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law.
The brief contends that even though Doerhoff had played a key role in more than 50 executions, he had not followed written instructions but instead "varied the amount of thiopental he gave inmates on a whim, without informing anyone."
The Missouri doctor also said that he had cut the thiopental dosage he gave inmates by half because a change in drug packaging forced him to "improvise," the brief said.
"The federal government chose to rely upon the only person in the country who has been explicitly barred by a federal court from participating in lethal injection executions," said the brief, written under the supervision of Tyler L. Alper, associate director of the death penalty clinic.
Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno, an expert on capital punishment methods who is closely following the challenges to lethal injection, said that Gaitan, an appointee of President Reagan, issued his order after "a thorough and detailed examination of Dr. Doerhoff's shocking lack of knowledge of the basic tenets of the drugs and procedures involved in a lethal injection execution, Dr. Doerhoff's admitted challenges with dyslexia that affected his ability to mix and measure the drugs, as well as his record of more than 20 malpractice suits and revoked privileges at two hospitals."
Denno said the revelations about Doerhoff illustrated "the need for transparency in the identity of executioners" so that their records could be scrutinized.
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henry.weinstein@latimes.com
