Page 2 of 45 FirstFirst 123412 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 441

Thread: Ohio Capital Punishment News

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    June 11, 2009

    Ohio to set more time between executions

    The Ohio Supreme Court said Thursday it will schedule future executions at least three weeks apart, an announcement made as the state prepares to put two men to death next month and as many as four more by year’s end.

    The court made the change Thursday in a decision denying Marvallous Keene’s request to delay his July 21 execution for killing five people in a 1992 rampage in Dayton.

    The court didn’t explain its decision, but officials involved in executions have tried recently to avoid too many dates at once.

    Last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office asked prosecutors to coordinate how they filed their requests for execution dates for fear of swamping the state Supreme Court.

    Gov. Ted Strickland welcomed the decision, saying it was important to allow the state time to carry out its responsibilities and to ensure the process is handled respectfully, said spokeswoman Amanda Wurst.

    Keene’s state public defenders had asked the Supreme Court to delay the execution to give them more time to prepare for his June 17 clemency hearing.

    The state Public Defender’s Office does not have the resources to process two execution cases within a month, thanks to budget cuts, staff reductions and duties representing several other death row inmates, assistant public defender Rachel Troutman told the court.

    State public defenders are also representing John Fautenberry, scheduled to die July 14 for the fatal shooting of a man in southwest Ohio during a 1991 multistate series of killings.

    “This Court should also take notice of the emotional toll it will take on the Ohio Public Defender’s staff to run two execution protocols in a single month,” Troutman said, adding the schedule would also take a toll on prison staff, the Ohio Parole Board and the Attorney General’s Office.

    Montgomery County prosecutors noted that the court had already delayed Keene’s clemency hearing by a week from June 10 to June 17.

    Carley Ingram, an assistant prosecutor, also said the state public defender’s office had represented Keene for the past 15 years and knows the facts of the case.

    “His desire for additional time does not outweigh the pain re-setting the date will cause to the sisters, mothers, fathers, and others who loved those he killed,” Ingram said in a court filing.

    The rampage took place over the Christmas holidays when Keene and five accomplices began a robbing and killing binge.

    After killing three people, Keene and one accomplice killed two of their other accomplices to prevent them from snitching about the crimes.

    The Supreme Court has scheduled additional executions in August, September, November and December.

    The court’s brief ruling Thursday said: “In general, future execution dates will be scheduled in order that at least three weeks will lapse between scheduled executions.”

    http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/...een-executions

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    August 10, 2009

    Executions are coming too fast, Ohio Public Defender Tim Young says


    The state of Ohio is lining up death-row inmates for execution at a feverish pace not seen here since capital punishment was reinstated a decade ago.

    Having already carried out three executions since June, the state has scheduled at least one lethal injection every month through the end of the year.

    That could mean that by year's end, Ohio will have executed eight men in the final seven months of 2009. The previous high was seven in all of 2004.

    They are coming too fast, argues Ohio Public Defender Tim Young, who worries that the burdens on state officials to carry out the tasks in rapid-fire succession could lead to careless mistakes.

    "This should never become ordinary, it should never become run-of-the-mill, it should never be a normal happening like the turning of a calendar page," Young said.

    "There is an incredible amount of work that goes into one of these cases, and to ask people to do it faster than it is normally done is unacceptable," he said. "Shortcuts are going to happen."


    But there could have been more this year if not for a decision by Ohio Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who heeded a request from the state prison system and public defender's office to not schedule executions within days of each other.

    Moyer, who sets the dates, did just that in July, when the sentences of John Fautenberry and Marvallous Keene were carried out within a week of each other. Young complained.

    While none of the upcoming executions are scheduled that close together, the pace isn't letting up. Ohio has executions planned for January and February, and at least two more inmates are awaiting their dreaded dates -- likely to come in March and April.

    While county prosecutors request execution dates for death-row inmates, it is the Ohio attorney general's office that typically has to step in to see that the punishment is carried out, and the office often acts as an advocate for victims' families.

    Attorney General Richard Cordray said he couldn't help but notice the stepped-up rate of executions and the burden that could pose on the system and families. But his office is prepared, he said.

    "We can handle whatever they do with us," Cordray said.

    So many condemned inmates are coming up at once because of a backlog of cases resulting from a pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases since 2007 that separately led to de facto moratoriums on lethal injections across the country.

    Also, Ohio's death row -- with 168 men and one woman -- is chock full of inmates who were sentenced in the 1980s and early 1990s, before life without parole was a sentencing option. Many are now running out of appeal options.

    In the fall of 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a Kentucky case challenging whether that state's lethal injection process, similar to Ohio's, was constitutional. Every state with a death penalty uses lethal injection. So while the court deliberated, executions everywhere stopped.

    The court in April 2008 upheld the Kentucky process, and Ohio later that year executed two men, including Richard Cooey from Summit County. Cooey had staved off execution for years, winning reprieves by claiming Ohio's three-drug concoction was tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.

    Several inmates had also won stays of execution by joining Cooey's case. But when the case was dismissed in 2008, those other inmates were added back to the list of those eligible for execution.

    But then another high-court case in late 2008 dealing with death row inmates' access to DNA testing in an effort to prove innocence slowed the rate of executions in Ohio and elsewhere. In June, however, the justices voted, in a split ruling, against giving inmates a federal right to the testing, and that reopened Ohio's death chamber for business again.

    "Once the U.S. Supreme Court came down with that ruling in June, then that was sort of the all clear," said Cordray. "And the Ohio Supreme Court had a bunch of cases to start scheduling."

    About a dozen inmates were already close to getting an execution date, meaning they had exhausted all of their appeals, or nearly done so, when the moratorium started in 2007. Meanwhile, the appeals process for other Ohio inmates never stopped. So, when the state returned to scheduling executions, the pool of eligible inmates had grown.

    There may be as many as 20 Ohio death row inmates now eligible for a date.

    About the only person who can slow this pace is Gov. Ted Strickland. After the legal options expire, inmates beg for clemency, a request that can be granted only by the governor. The answer is usually no.

    Strickland now faces an unusual death penalty dilemma. Jason Getsy is scheduled to die on Aug. 18. But the Ohio Parole Board, in a rare move, recommended the governor grant clemency, noting that Getsy's co-defendant was spared the death penalty. The family of Getsy's victim, meanwhile, is pleading for Strickland to carry out the sentence.

    The governor has repeatedly said he is uncomfortable with controlling the fate of inmates but always adds that it is his duty to follow the law.

    Of the seven men scheduled for lethal injection between now and February, two are from Cuyahoga County and one from Summit County.

    "I know we have to acknowledge we have one of the larger death rows in the country," said Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions. "But I think we have to be aware that this doesn't make executions OK or a good thing."

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009..._too_fast.html

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    EMT board ducks death-penalty flap

    The Ohio EMS board has no authority over the emergency medical technicians who administer lethal drugs in state executions.

    That's the opinion board lawyer Heather R. Frient made public yesterday during the board's meeting.

    Board members asked Frient to determine whether these technicians were under their jurisdiction. Under state law, intermediate EMTs are not authorized to work with these drugs.

    But these technicians are an exception, Frient said.

    "They do not appear to be acting as EMTs in the performance of their execution duties," she wrote in the opinion.

    The issue was first brought up by Dr. Jonathan Groner, a pediatric surgeon at Nationwide Children's Hospital and former board member.

    Groner said his concern was prompted by the testimony of 2 intermediate EMTs in a federal case filed by an Ohio Death Row inmate challenging lethal injection.

    The case, filed in 2004, is pending.

    Frient said these technicians:

    • Don't "represent themselves" as EMTs on the execution team.

    • Don't wear clothes that identify them as emergency-medical workers.

    • Don't work under a physician's direction.

    But in court documents, the EMTs testified that they have certificates issued by the EMS division, take continuing education classes and keep up with all state requirements.

    Groner said he was disappointed with the opinion.

    "When you obtain medical-profession skills -- a doctor, nurse or EMT -- those skills you use to help people should never be used to harm people," said Groner, who opposes the death penalty.

    The procedure that state officials follow during executions states that the lethal drugs should be given by a "person qualified under Ohio law to administer medications."

    In Ohio, physicians, nurses and paramedics working under a doctor's order are allowed to administer these drugs.

    State corrections officials have said they would not ask physicians or nurses to be involved in executions because it conflicts with their oaths to preserve lives.

    "The EMS board is put in the position where it does not think EMTs are as professional as other medical professions," Groner said.

    The governor is satisfied with the execution process.

    "He believes the system established and carried out by (the Department of Corrections) is appropriate," said spokeswoman Allison Kolodziej.

    Mark Burgess, EMS board chairman, said he agreed with the opinion because "there are times when we don't have jurisdiction."

    He said hospitals often hire paramedics, teach them new skills and call them surgical technicians, for example.

    "And we don't have jurisdiction over them," he said. "They're not functioning as a paramedic."

    The board didn't challenge or disagree with the opinion, though one member said the discussion might not be over.

    "I think it may be something we've got to look at closer," said William Quinn, who represents the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters on the board.

    "It appears to open a Pandora's box."

    (source: Columbus Dispatch)

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Ohio to switch to 1 drug for lethal injection

    Ohio has become the first state to adopt a procedure for lethal injections that uses one drug, a method never before tried on U.S. inmates.

    The state filed papers Friday in U.S. District Court saying it has decided to switch from a three-drug cocktail to a single injection of thiopental sodium into a vein. A muscle injection will be available as a backup.

    The decision comes two months after an Ohio death row inmate walked away from an unsuccessful execution and subsequent executions were put on hold.

    Several states have faced similar challenges, but Ohio is the 1st to drop the 3-drug approach in favor of one dose. The Death Penalty Information Center says it's never been attempted on humans.

    The state's decision to move away from its 3-drug protocol comes two months after a death row inmate walked away from an unsuccessful execution and subsequent executions were put on hold.

    The state has been looking for alternatives to the three-drug cocktail since a federal judge said it couldn't go forward with a second planned execution attempt of Romell Broom.

    In the 1st attempt, Broom was unable to be executed Sept. 15 because officials couldn't find a suitable vein for the lethal injection.

    The state said in the filing that its new execution method should lead to the dismissal of the primary constitutional challenge to its lethal injection methods.

    Prison officials planned a briefing on the new injection procedure Friday afternoon.

    It will use just 1 chemical, thiopental sodium, injected intraveously in a sufficient amount to cause death. The 2 other drugs currently used, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, will be dropped.

    As a back-up, in cases like Broom's where a suitable vein cannot be located, a combination of 2 chemicals will be injected into muscle. Those drugs will be midazolam and hydromorphone.

    (source: Associated Press)

  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Judge happy with single-dose injection

    Death row inmates will have no legal grounds to argue about Ohio's new lethal injection procedure, said the judge who ruled the state's 3-drug cocktail was unconstitutional.

    Yesterday, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Director Terry Collins said the state will stop using a 3-drug cocktail to execute the state's worst offenders. Instead, a single intravenous drug will be used to execute inmates, or a 2-drug injection into the muscle if workers cannot maintain an IV in the prisoner.

    The new state execution protocol is "exactly what I had thought would be constitutional," Lorain County Common Pleas Court Judge James M. Burge said.

    "I suppose that's some affirmation," he said yesterday.

    The state announcement came as a surprise, Burge said.

    "I am surprised because the resistance to my suggestion was so strong," Burge said.

    Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will and the Ohio Attorney General's Office contested Burge's ruling, and the appeals court ruled the issue was not ripe for those judges to consider.

    "I didn't think it would ever go anywhere, but it did," Burge said. "At least those condemned persons can look forward to a painless death and I cannot imagine any constitutional challenge to this. I think it's foolproof at this point."

    An attorney who once argued about the death penalty in Burge's court disagreed with the judge's assessment.

    Death row inmates "of course" will file new court requests because the new method has never been used to execute a person, said attorney Jeffrey Gamso, a former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union Ohio.

    The single-drug method uses a barbituate that veterinarians use to euthanize dogs and cats, he said.

    "What they've come up with is a plan and especially a backup plan that nobody's ever tested on any human being," Gamso said. "The truth is nobody's done this so we've got an experimental method of killing."

    Yesterday's state announcement was not directly related to Burge's ruling. Collins and the state attorneys filed the plan as part of a federal lawsuit brought against the state by Ohio's death row inmates.

    However, Burge delved into Ohio's death penalty procedure when two Lorain County capital murder defendants, Ronald McCloud and Ruben Rivera, challenged the constitutionality of the method of execution. The judge noted his June 2008 ruling would apply only to Rivera and McCloud.

    Ohio used 3 drugs to execute convicts: sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that can cause death in a large dose; pancuronium bromide, a paralytic that prevents contortions; and potassium chloride that stops the heart.

    Pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, can cause excruciating pain, according to testimony from medical experts in Burge's hearing about McCloud and Rivera.

    Ohio law guarantees the condemned inmates a quick and painless death, Burge said, so the 3-drug procedure violated the federal and state constitutional rights of inmates.

    Ohio inmates could be executed quickly and painlessly by using just sodium thiopental, Burge said.

    Ohio protocol orders 2 grams of sodium thiopental, which can be fatal, Burge said. However, "a single massive dose," such as the 5 grams used in California executions, "will cause certain death," Burge said in his court ruling.

    In his ruling, Burge ordered the phrase "or combination of drugs" removed from the Ohio law governing executions.

    Burge also ordered the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections to stop using pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride from Ohio's lethal injection protocol.

    The new execution procedure will have sodium thiopental injected intravenously, and as a backup, inject midazolam and hydromorphone in to the shoulder, thigh or buttock muscles.

    "Switching to 1 drug doesn't solve the problem if you can't get the drug into the guy in the first place," Gamso said. The backup plan is also experimental because it has not been used on people before, he said.

    In August, Rivera, 40, of Cleveland, pleaded guilty to the shooting death of 48-year-old Manuel Garcia in a 2004 drug-related robbery in Lorain. He was sentenced to 39 years to life in prison.

    McCloud, 29, of Elyria, is accused of raping and killing Janet Barnard, 57, at the Living Water Christian Fellowship Church in Lorain in June 2005.

    His case remains pending at Lorain County Common Pleas Court. Gamso formerly was legal counsel for McCloud.

    (source: The Morning Journal)

  6. #16
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Lawyer: Ohio's legal injection a human experiment

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — The state's new lethal-injection plan is so untested that it would amount to human experimentation if used for the first time next month, an attorney for a condemned inmate said in a Friday court filing.

    There is no reason for federal courts to allow the scheduled Dec. 8 execution of Kenneth Biros given the lack of details in the proposed system, which replaces a fatal three-drug cocktail with a single powerful dose of anesthetic, attorney Tim Sweeney said.

    Ohio also has proposed a two-drug muscle injection as a backup, but Sweeney said in a filing with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that there's no evidence of the backup's reliability.

    "There is nothing in the record on which this Court can make any legitimate determination as to whether the 'back-up' they have selected is as or more constitutionally problematic than a gunshot to the head," Sweeney wrote.

    The proposal "is human experimentation, pure and simple," Sweeney said.

    Biros killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991. He had offered to drive her home from a bar, then dismembered her corpse and scattered her body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

    He acknowledged killing her but said it was done during a drunken rage.

    Trumbull County prosecutor Dennis Watkins called Biros, 51, "a poster person for the death penalty."

    Sweeney responded to a Friday afternoon deadline set by the 6th Circuit, which wants to know why a lawsuit challenging injection shouldn't be dismissed.

    Biros has argued that Ohio's three-drug injection process could cause severe pain, in violation of the Constitution.

    After the state last week replaced that system with a single dose of anesthetic, it said the new approach renders Biros' lawsuit moot.

    Attorney General Richard Cordray said nothing is stopping Biros from challenging the one-drug proposal. But Cordray also pointed out that Biros and other inmates have often said that adopting the single-drug method could eliminate the risk of pain.

    A federal judge has temporarily delayed Biros' execution but left open the possibility the execution could still happen if the state revised its injection rules.

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/...nt-412457.html

  7. #17
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217



    Lethal injection creator fine with 1 drug in Ohio

    By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
    Associated Press Writer

    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The man considered the father of lethal injection in the United States said it doesn't matter whether three fatal drugs are used or one - as his home state of Ohio has proposed - as long as the drug works efficiently.

    Dr. Jay Chapman, who developed the lethal three-drug cocktail in the 1970s when he was the Oklahoma state medical examiner, said Ohio's decision to become the first state in the nation to use only one drug achieves that goal.

    He said there was no particular reason he didn't propose a single drug, other than a concern that it might take a little longer to work. His three-drug method became widespread after states copied Oklahoma.

    Now Chapman, semiretired in California at age 70, said he believes the system he helped create shows condemned inmates too much mercy.

    "Their death is made much too easy by this sort of protocol for the crimes that they committed," he told The Associated Press last week.

    But he said the hope was injection would avoid the pain-and-suffering arguments and allow executions to take place.

    Under Ohio's new system, executioners would use a single large dose of thiopental sodium, an anesthetic, to put inmates to death, similar to the way veterinarians euthanize animals.

    The one-drug system has never been used on condemned inmates in the United States.

    State officials proposed the change after state executioners tried unsuccessfully Sept. 15 to find a usable vein for condemned killer Romell Broom. Broom, who raped and killed a 14-year-old girl in 1984 in Cleveland, is challenging the state's right to try a second time.

    The new protocol would provide a backup method using two drugs injected into a muscle if no usable vein can be found, as happened with Broom. The current system uses one drug that puts inmates to sleep, a second that paralyzes them and a third that stops their heart.

    Death penalty opponents have long argued that the three drugs could cause offenders severe pain if the first drug didn't adequately knock out an inmate.

    Capital punishment entered Chapman's life early. A childhood friend, Chester Gregg, was executed for killing his wife in July 1952.

    Chapman, who grew up in the southwest Ohio town of Blanchester, and his mother stayed up with Gregg's mother the night of the execution. He said the event had no bearing on his later work.

    "It's a totally separate thing," Chapman said. "It's just an experience I had along the way."

    Chapman, a forensic pathologist, was the Oklahoma medical examiner while state officials were looking for a new execution method shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment constitutional. Lawmakers then began looking for a humane method of execution to replace the electric chair.

    Chapman initially proposed a two-drug approach: an anesthetic followed by a paralytic drug. He later added potassium chloride, to provide for instantaneous death.

    "We felt that by going with this type of regimen, no one could suggest that it was cruel and unusual because people undergo this very protocol every day for anesthetic for surgery world-round," Chapman said.

    The U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection, ruling on Kentucky's three-drug method, which is similar to that in Ohio and many other states.

    A separate lawsuit challenges Ohio's protocol, questioning in recent months the qualifications of executioners, some of whom are paramedics.

    Attorneys for death row inmates mention the case of Joseph Clark when raising questions about executioners' ability to perform lethal injection. In 2006, Clark's execution had to be restarted after he pushed himself up and announced the drugs weren't working. An execution in 2007 also took much longer that usual. The state has repeatedly said it's confident in its execution team.

    The state argues that the new method renders the lawsuit moot, since it removes the possibility of pain, and it addresses situations such as the Broom case. Opponents says moving ahead quickly with the new, untested method amounts to "human experimentation."

    Ohio hopes to have its new system in place in time for a possible execution Dec. 8.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

  8. #18
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    November 23, 2009

    New lethal injection policies put Ohio at center of legal and ethical debate over executions

    Columbus -- Death row inmates and advocates on both sides of the capital punishment debate across the country have had their eyes on Ohio since the recent announcement that this state will pioneer the use of a single drug to execute inmates.

    Earlier this month, Ohio prison officials announced they will abandon the three-drug cocktail for lethal injection in favor of a single injection of a massive dose of barbiturates. If the execution team is unable to find a suitable vein, the drug will be injected into an inmate's chest muscle.

    Both procedures are unprecedented in modern American execution practices, and the new blueprint has thrust Ohio into the center of the raging ethical and legal debates that swirl around capital punishment.

    "It could be a significant turning point in the direction of the death penalty in this country," said Ohio State University Law School professor Douglas Berman, an expert on criminal sentencing and the death penalty. "It's already a turning point that Ohio is willing to try something new, but the real question is, will the courts be comfortable with Ohio's efforts? Will the better mousetrap, if you will, prove to be successful in Ohio?"

    The new approach comes after a badly botched execution on Sept. 14 when the execution team failed to find a usable vein in the arm of inmate Romell Broom, who raped and killed 14-year-old Tryna Middleton of East Cleveland in 1984. Similar problems haunted the execution of killers Joseph Clark in 2006 and Chris Newton in 2007, although officials were eventually able to open veins and execute the men after lengthy delays.

    The three-drug method also was the source of several lawsuits claiming Ohio's procedures were cruel and unusual because inmates could feel pain while being sedated, paralyzed and killed by the drugs.

    Jeff Gamso, a defense attorney who handles death penalty cases for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which opposes the death penalty, said the one-drug method makes Ohio unique, but doesn't clear up whether this is a more humane way to kill people.

    "Nobody really knows because nobody had ever done this before," he said. "Just because you gave up a bad idea doesn't mean you replaced it with a good idea."

    However, Ty Alper, associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California-Berkeley, which serves as a resource for defense attorneys suing states over lethal injection methods, said the one-drug method should cause less pain to the victim than the three-drug cocktail.

    "I think this is something that is pretty well accepted," he said. "It's very similar to the way that animals are euthanized -- there's been a lot of testimony about it, and the effects of the anesthetic are pretty well known."

    The first Ohio inmate to be executed using the single-drug method could be Kenneth Biros, a killer from the Youngstown area who has a Dec. 8 execution date. A federal judge has placed a hold on Biros' execution based on his argument that the three-drug cocktail could have caused severe pain in violation of his constitutional rights barring cruel and unusual punishment.

    But the state's new procedures open the door for Biros to become the 33rd inmate executed in Ohio since the death penalty was resumed in the Buckeye State in 1999.

    The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave Biros' legal team until Friday to present arguments for why his lawsuit shouldn't be dismissed in the wake of the changes announced by the state. Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray's office has argued in court papers that the new method "renders moot" the cruel and unusual punishment claim from Biros.

    Biros killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991 after he offered to drive her home from a bar.

    Law professor Berman said the state would like to get Biros executed with the single dose of painkillers to return to business as usual long before Broom, who sparked international attention with his botched execution, is back in the death chamber.

    "My sense is they would like to make Biros -- for a lack of a better term -- the guinea pig for this new method," Berman said. "But this is brand new territory. We've never before seen a state that because of botched executions decides to change its methods midstream."

    If Ohio's one-drug method does work uneventfully in executing prisoners, it could remove the excessive pain argument from the arsenal of Ohio defense attorneys. However, the new procedures also open up new grounds for legal challenges, experts say.

    For example, Alper said that the state's backup plan for injecting the drug directly into the chest muscle if a suitable vein can't be found is a complete unknown and thus a potentially potent legal issue.

    "It will depend on the backup plan and whether that is something the courts will accept," he said. "There are a lot of open questions about injecting the drug intramuscularly as opposed to intravenously. There are fewer open questions about one-drug protocol."

    Amanda Wurst, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ted Strickland, said the Democratic governor is comfortable with the new procedures and thinks that executions should proceed again in the state.

    But most doctors will probably still have the same ethical misgivings with the process even if the procedures have been altered, said Stuart Youngner, chairman of the Bioethics Department at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

    "Is this better and more ethical because the person will be put to death more painlessly?" Youngner asked. "I have no idea if that is true and, frankly, I'm skeptical. It's harder to kill people than you think that it is."

    Youngner said Dutch doctors have extensively studied the issue for the country's euthanasia laws and concluded the three-drug cocktail is the best. "If this is such a great idea then why is Ohio the only one doing it?" he asked. "The Dutch don't do it and they are the world's foremost experts on it."

    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009..._policies.html

  9. #19
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Seeing the Execution Process in Ohio Death Penalty Cases

    LUCASVILLE, Ohio (WSAZ) – Few issues, if any, spark more controversy than the death penalty.

    In light of the recent problems over a lethal injection gone wrong in Ohio, the Buckeye State released a new execution policy on Monday. The state also opened its "death house" to the media, including WSAZ.com's Randy Yohe.

    The death house moved to Lucasville from Columbus in 1972. In 1993, inmates were given the choice of electrocution or lethal injection. In 2001, the state did away with the electric chair, and lethal injection was the only choice.

    Media from Cleveland to Dayton squeezed into a group of small rooms at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility that make up the so-called death house.

    The first stop on the tour was the two divided witness rooms where the families of the inmate and victim witness the execution. The media also saw the holding cell where the inmate spends his last 24 hours with a TV and radio. He gets visits, has a place for contact visits and then walks the 17 steps to the other room.

    That’s the holding cell where the inmate is connected to intravenous tubes that will then be connected to the lethal drug. The new execution protocol uses one powerful dose of sodium thiopental rather than the standard three-drug cocktail. All this is done without a doctor on the execution team, but with trained and qualified staffers.

    And in light of the recent inability to sustain an IV line to execute inmate Romell Broom, there's now a back up plan to inject two lethal drugs intramuscular like a flu shot.

    There are 167 people on death row in Ohio, and one execution set for every month until June.

    We're told Ohio is the first state in the nation, and this is the first death house in the world to use the one drug injection method rather than the lethal three-drug cocktail.

    http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/78185132.html

  10. #20
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Ohio inmate to get 1-drug, slower, execution


    By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Writer Andrew Welsh-huggins, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 30 mins ago

    COLUMBUS, Ohio – Condemned killer Kenneth Biros could become the first person in the country put to death with a single dose of an intravenous anesthetic instead of the usual — and faster-acting — three-drug process if his execution proceeds Tuesday.

    The execution could propel other states to eventually consider the switch, which proponents say ends arguments over unnecessary suffering during injection. California and Tennessee previously considered then rejected the one-drug approach.

    Though the untested method has never been used on an inmate in the United States, one difference is clear: Biros will likely die more slowly than inmates put to death with the three-drug method, which includes a drug that stops the heart.

    Lethal injection experts on both sides of the debate over injection say thiopental sodium, which kills by putting people so deeply asleep they stop breathing, will take longer.

    How much longer is unclear: Mark Dershwitz, an anesthesiologist who advised Ohio on its switch to the single drug, has written death should occur in under 15 minutes.

    Ohio inmates have typically taken about seven minutes to die after the three-drug IV injection, which combines thiopental sodium with the drugs pancuronium bromide — which paralyzes muscles — and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest. Dershwitz also said in a court filing last week that a single dose of thiopental sodium would take longer than the three drugs, though he didn't specify a time.

    The switch from three drugs to one was ordered last month because of the state's botched attempt on Sept. 15 to execute convicted rapist and killer Romell Broom. His executioners tried unsuccessfully for two hours to find a usable vein for injection, painfully hitting bone and muscle in as many as 18 needle sticks. Gov. Ted Strickland halted the execution.

    Broom, 53, has appealed the state's attempt to try again.

    Ohio officials contend the single-drug method should end a five-year-old lawsuit against the state that claims injection can cause inmates severe suffering.

    Lethal injection experts and defense attorneys for death row inmates have said the one-drug method, a single dose of an anesthetic, would not cause pain.

    Biros, 51, killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom near Warren in 1991 after offering to drive her home from a bar, then scattered her body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

    All 36 death penalty states use lethal injection, and 35 rely on the three-drug method. Nebraska, which recently adopted injection over electrocution, has proposed the three-drug method but hasn't finalized the process.

    States with active death chambers are keeping an eye on Ohio's switch but have no immediate plans to switch. Florida, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia are among those keeping the three-drug system for now.

    "Virginia's method has been successfully used in over 75 executions and repeatedly been upheld as constitutionally acceptable," state prisons spokesman Larry Traylor said Friday.

    States will likely watch Ohio's experience and the court challenges before making a decision, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

    The U.S. Supreme Court said last year that states would only have to change the three-drug process if an alternative method lessened the possibility of pain. Defense attorneys have also supported the one-drug option, reducing the possibility of legal challenges, Dieter said.

    If Ohio is successful "in making this transition, and if a few other states follow that lead, I think we will see the majority of states changing to this method of lethal injection," Dieter said.

    Biros' attorneys want his execution delayed, saying the new untested method has never been used in "any other civilized country" and would amount to human experimentation. But the same attorneys earlier advocated for the state to switch to the one-drug method.

    The state "could and should shift to a one-drug protocol designed to cause death by means of an overdose of an anesthetic," John Parker, one of Biros' attorneys, said in a court filing last year.

    Doctors conducting euthanasia in Europe administer thiopental sodium but also usually add pancuronium bromide.

    Ohio has executed 32 men by injection since 1999, three of them with complications. In 2006, executioners needed more than an hour to put inmate Joseph Clark to death after the drugs initially failed to work because of problems with his veins.

    In 2007, executioners took several minutes to find a usable vein on inmate Christopher Newton because of his large size, and he then took 15 minutes to die, twice as long as normal.

    The state says this history supports Ohio's success with injections: "in over thirty executions, Ohio has encountered difficulties three times, and only on one occasion has it been necessary to postpone the execution," Charles Wille, an assistant Ohio Attorney General, said Friday.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091206/...penalty_ohio_4

Page 2 of 45 FirstFirst 123412 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •