Deadly Doc

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Nov/Dec 2006 by Kohler, Jeremy

Supervisor of state's lethal injections has questionable professional record

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newsroom was abuzz on June 26 when U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. ordered Missouri executions halted. Gaitan was concerned that Missouri's lethal injection could be unconstitutionally cruel punishment.

Ruling in the appeal of death row inmate Michael Taylor, Gaitan wrote that he was troubled that the state had entrusted the mixing of the lethal cocktail - a task which required absolute precision - to a dyslexic doctor who sometimes confused drug names and transposed figures. Gaitan said Missouri could not guarantee inmates were being properly anesthetized before painful injections.

The doctor's own testimony, from behind a screen, torpedoed Missouri's right to execute. He testified that he knew of no written protocols for the injection and said he changed the protocol on his independent authority.

Gaitan ordered the state to come up with a better system.

Who was this doctor? My editor, Patrick Gauen. assigned me to profile him. Our story would highlight the career troubled with professional allegations and public reprimands of the man charged with the lethal injection of Missouri death row inmates.

Finding John Doe

Spotlighting this doctor's background seemed, to us, very much in the public interest.

But officials - including Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon - kept a lid on the doctor's identity and even secured a court order sealing it. Nixon had long insisted that plaintiffs didn't need to know the doctor's identity, only that he was qualified and board-certified.

The doctor, therefore, was called "John Doe 1" in court filings. When I asked to see Doe, a Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman refused, saying his superiors were concerned for Doe's safety. Although we would consider the state's arguments for masking Doe's identity, we believed we needed to first find out who he was.

I called Tavlor's lawyers, but they said they were trying not to learn Doe's identity so they couldn't be accused of leaking it. They didn't want to bollix their victory by getting slapped with contempt-of-court charges.

A nurse, unconnected to the case, passed us a rumor that Doe's son was an anesthesiologist at St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield, Mo.

St. Luke's Web site listed 28 anesthesiologists. I ran each surname through the state's professional registration database to find general surgeons of the same name. I immediately found a St. Luke's anesthesiologist named Roy A. Doerhoff, 34. Two other Doerhoffs were listed as general surgeons in Jefferson City - the state capital -Alan, 62, and Carl, 56.

Using LexisNexis, I learned that Roy had lived at Alan's address years earlier. I figured Alan was probably his father, and it certainly made sense that Doe practiced in the capital city, home of the Department of Corrections.

My colleague Jaimi Dowdell found an article linking the Doerhoffs to Missouri prisons. Alan and Carl Doerhoff had treated state prisoners for more than a decade. I couldn't reach Alan Doerhoff, but Carl Doerhoff became upset when I questioned him. insisting he didn't know anything about executions and demanding that I not use his name.

Next, I found that the state Board of Healing Arts had publicly reprimanded Alan Doerhoft" in 2003. Doerhoff had violated Missouri Revised Statute 334.100.2(4) by hiding his malpractice history from a hospital where he was trying to renew staff privileges, but I found few other details.

The attorney general's office had signed off on the reprimand, so, if Doerhoff was indeed Doe, Nixon's office would have had access to records showing the execution doctor had a blemished professional record. But the reprimand had not been disclosed to the prisoner who brought the lawsuit, or to Judge Gaitan.

Our news-research director, Mike Meiners, secured Doerhoff's pay records from the Office of Administration and found the Department of Corrections had paid him $33,020 for "misc. professional services" since mid-2001, typically in checks of $2,000 issued shortly after each of the past 17 executions.

I needed more. I found a clue while leafing through filings from several Missouri death-penalty appeals. A lawyer for Timothy Johnston, who was executed in August 2005, disclosed in filings that the Healing Arts board had disciplined Doe - as it had Alan Doerhoff - for a violation of 334.100.2(4), enacted in 2000.

Now we knew Doe was a male general surgeon, certified by the Board of Healing Arts as of June 5. He was practicing medicine as early as the January 1989, when Missouri first used lethal injection. He was publicly reprimanded by the state Healing Arts board, some time after 2000. for violating 334.100.2(4).

Then we began the process of elimination. Out of all the 412 physicians who accepted prejudicial board action during that time, 67 were publicly reprimanded but kept their licenses. Of those, 29 were found to have violated statute 334.100.2(4). Of those, 23 were men. Of those, only 17 were still licensed by the Missouri Board of Healing Arts.