Opinion ID: 1912613
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 35

Heading: Heart Capable of Restarting

Text: The district court correctly noted that the experts do not agree on how death occurs in an electrocution. All the experts testifying about the effect of a high voltage current on the heart believed that the heart could sometimes beat again after the current was stopped. This is because the heart has built-in, regulators independent of the brain. Only a forensic pathologist for the defense believed that in most cases, a prisoner's heart could not recover its normal rhythm after the current was stopped. As the district court found, however, physicians have detected heartbeats after the current is stopped  notably in Nebraska's 1929 execution. A physicist for the defense explained that there is a well-recognized range of electrical strengths that will cause fibrillation of the heart. Electric currents with strengths above or below this range will not cause fibrillation, and 2,450 volts is above the range. While the heart will not effectively pump blood during the application of the current, he believed it would almost always recover. Similarly, Wright, the State's expert, had assisted with a few autopsies after judicial electrocutions and believed the autopsies showed that the prisoners' hearts almost always start beating again. This evidence supports the district court's finding that some prisoners' hearts will beat rhythmically again after the current is stopped.