Ohio to change lethal injections drug protocol News
Ohio to change lethal injections drug protocol

[JURIST] Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) [official website] announced [press release] Thursday that it is revising its execution protocol to no longer use the two-drug combination that caused the troubling 26-minute execution of Dennis McGuire last January. Ohio was scrutinized after the state executed McGuire [NBC News report] with an untested combination of midazolam and hydromorphone. The same drugs were used in the botched July 2014 execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona. Wood struggled to breath for nearly two hours before his death [CNN report]. According to the DRC, the state will again use pentobarbital or thiopental sodium, an anesthetic used from 1999 through 2011. In 2011 the state was forced to revise its execution protocol after the manufacturer restricted thiopental sodium’s distribution. The DRC also announced that the February 11 execution of Ronald Phillips is being delayed as the agency secures supplies of the new drug. However, it is unclear where the state will obtain the drugs. Ohio also has executions scheduled in March, May, July, September and November of this year.

The controversy [JURIST op-ed] surrounding the contents of lethal injection drugs and execution protocol in the US has been a mainstream issue in politics and in courts around the US in 2014, especially after McGuire’s botched execution in January. The children of McGuire, a convicted murderer, filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] in January over the method used in McGuire’s 26-minute long execution, which they say amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Earlier that month, McGuire’s attorneys filed for a stay of execution [JURIST report], claiming that the untried execution method would cause McGuire to experience a suffocation-like syndrome known as air hunger. The court refused to halt the execution [JURIST report], finding that the evidence presented failed to prove a substantial risk of severe pain. The US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ordered a temporary moratorium [JURIST report] on executions in Ohio in May to allow attorneys time to complete discovery and other legal preparations pertaining to Ohio’s execution protocols. The stay is set to expire in January [Cleveland report].

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