Death Chamber Ethics

The Associated Press reports that an Ohio public defender was temporarily suspended while officials investigated whether he coached his client to fake symptoms of suffocation and "put on a big show" during his January 16 execution to aid the cause of abolishing the death penalty. The charges were dropped for lack of substantiation. Which leaves the open question whether such coaching would be more like the ethical sin of encouraging a client to perjure himself, or like the tolerable practice of coaching an unremorseful client to show contrition at sentencing.