Even if the procedure was deemed "medically appropriate," the remaining hurdles were still significant; for example, under the rules of organ procurement and distribution, Johnson's liver would go to a patient matched to the organ based on a combination of factors, and not necessarily to Ms. Otis. This uncertainty punches a big hole in the reason Gov. Daniels might have made an exception here. If the liver wouldn't go straight to Ms. Otis, allowing Johnson to donate it is no longer an attempt to save his sister. Such a decision would amount to harvesting organs from death row, which would start a moral firestorm - not exactly Mitch's modus operandi. Remember, this is the Mitch Daniels of an open mind but a strong decision, and ordering a stay of execution based on medical speculation would not be consistent with his style.

Those who had arguments loaded and ready to use on both sides of the ethical issues may be disappointed about the lost opportunity to debate, but there will be no decisions about those issues, including whether Indiana will attempt to harvest the liver after Johnson had KCl coursing through his body, disregard the United Network for Organ Sharing's apparent ban on the use of condemned criminals as donors, or take a partial liver transplant and nurse Johnson back to health just long enough to kill him. Johnson died as scheduled, and took his liver with him.

So why was this the right decision? The precedential weight alone would have been a disaster for Daniels. Every death row inmate would ask for a delay to "further explore the possibility" of organ donation to a sick relative, if only for the reason of delaying execution. If Daniels had allowed the exploration of transplant options on the slim evidence in front of him and the Clarian physicians, he would have legitimized such evidence as sufficient for a stay. There are the countless other issues of ethics and medicine at play here, but looking through the narrow lenses of the law, precedential weight is the reason that makes it clear that Mitch Daniels couldn't permit Johnson to give up his liver before (or after) being put to death.