Doctors' orders

Crime | Some medical groups are trying to stop physicians from assisting in legal executions, putting the death penalty on hold in several states | Jamie Dean

Death row inmate Allen Holman wants to die.

Allen Holman wants to die. The 47-year-old death row inmate admits how he murdered his estranged wife, Linda Holman, on July 28, 1997: After chasing her down at a high speed, and ramming her car from behind, Holman gunned down his wife of seven years in a convenience store parking lot in front of a police officer.

A North Carolina jury sentenced Holman to death in 1998. Since then, he has dropped his appeals, fired his lawyers, and repeatedly asked the state to impose his death sentence.

Officials were poised to oblige on March 9, but a Wake County judge delayed Holman's execution, citing a tangled conundrum: State protocol for executions requires a doctor to monitor a condemned inmate's vital signs, but the state's medical board says it will discipline any doctor who does so, calling physician participation in executions unethical.