Clayton Lockett was executed by lethal injection on April 29, 2014, in Oklahoma. The process was an abject failure, as the execution doctor repeatedly failed to correctly place an IV.

As a result, Lockett writhed, moaned and gasped in apparent consciousness and pain for almost 45 minutes, before ultimately dying of a heart attack. The procedure was visibly and shockingly cruel. This was not the way the execution was supposed to go.

Lockett’s family has sued the state and the doctor in charge of the execution. For the purpose of that suit, the doctor has been tagged, “Dr. Doe.” In that suit, the state of Oklahoma has invoked a state law requiring that the names of members of the execution team, including Dr. Doe’s, be kept confidential, which could prevent (or deter) any doctor or patient from complaining to the Oklahoma Medical Board about Dr. Doe’s competence in connection with the execution.

The negligence of every other physician in Oklahoma, in every other circumstance, is accessible to the public through hearings and published findings. But the Oklahoma board has no way of investigating the negligent practice of medicine during executions unless the name of the treating physician can be disclosed. And while one incident may not be representative of a doctor’s competence, accumulated incidents may tell a different story.

Prisoners are particularly vulnerable to malpractice and negligence; indeed, many prison doctors have disciplinary or criminal records themselves. And the subject of a botched execution cannot exactly file a complaint. Dead men, after all, tell no tales.

If Oklahoma continues to require the participation of a physician in an execution, then the actions of that physician must be reviewable, just as they are with respect to any other patient.

I am sensitive to the understandable, but false, equivalence of whether Lockett’s death was at least as merciful as the one he was convicted of visiting upon his victim, Stephanie Nieman. But as a country, we do not, and should not, judge our own conduct by the standard of convicted murderers. The state of Oklahoma was carrying out a court-ordered penalty, pursuant to legislation and a complex set of regulations. These regulations mandated that executions be carried out through a medical procedure supervised by a licensed physician.

The state of Oklahoma responded to our filing by arguing that the gratuitous cruelty inflicted by Dr. Doe’s incompetent medical practice does not matter, because “there is no duty” of competence or to provide reasonable medical care in carrying out an execution. The doctor’s duties are limited to ensuring that “the inmate dies.”

In other words, in Oklahoma’s view, there should be no accountability for cruelty or incompetence in a condemned man’s final interaction on earth.

So, why should anyone care whether the doctor who supervised the execution was any good and whether a convicted murderer suffered? Why should the public as a whole want to know whether Dr. Doe was incompetent or impaired or gratuitously cruel or willfully indifferent to the suffering of another human being?

Because Doctor Doe does not work exclusively for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. According to Internet accounts, which do disclose Dr. Doe’s identity, he is an ordinary physician who practices emergency medicine in Oklahoma. One would expect that the placement and monitoring of IVs would be one of his regular professional responsibilities. And next time, you (or someone you love) could be lying in the emergency room at your local hospital, waiting for Doctor Doe to treat you.

Katherine Toomey is a partner at Lewis Baach PLLC in Washington D.C. She represents Doctors for the Ethical Practice of Medicine as Amici Curiae in the case Lockett v. Fallin, pending before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver.