The state's highest court will take up North Carolina's death penalty today.

The death penalty has been on hold in North Carolina since January 2007, when the medical board adopted a policy, threatening to punish doctors who participate in executions.

But state law requires a doctor to be present and today the State Board of Corrections and the North Carolina Medical Board will argue their cases.

A moratorium on executions was put in place after the Council of State started approving changes to the execution procedure. North Carolina hasn't executed an inmate in more than two years because of the legal challenges.

The heart of the issue has been about how humane executions are.

In a special hearing held on the death penalty, back in May, a documentary about a former Texas death row chaplain called "At The Death House Door" was screened.

"After each execution I made a tape on everybody that I walked with," said the Texas Chaplain in the documentary.

The documentary was to address the concerns surrounding the death penalty.

"There was considerable controversy on whether the death penalty could be implemented with lethal injection," said Richard Dieter from the Death Penalty Information Center.

And just last month, arguments continued about the protocol for executions in North Carolina and who should ultimately be responsible for making those decisions.

Attorneys for five death row inmates say they want the council responsible for signing off on the way executions are carried out to ask more questions before signing off on the process.

"The council of state, at a minimum, needs to engage in policy consideration about how does this work," said Attorney Lucy Inman.

But state claims the council is a body made up of elected officials who trust qualified personnel to make those decisions.

"The council of state is an odd duck in the statutory language. It's created by constitution. It doesn't have any defined responsibilities other than where it says so in the statute," said Assistant Attorney General, Joseph Finaerilli.

After today's hearing the state could be one step closer to making a decision on whether to allow lethal injections and whether a doctor needs to be present in the execution process.