July 9
TEXAS----impending execution
Death Watch: Mental Illness Claims Fail; Death Awaits----After a 2005 murder,
Clifton Williams is set to be executed
East Texan Clifton Williams heads to the gurney next Thursday, July 16, after 9
years spent on death row for the murder of Cecelia Schneider. Williams, 31, was
21 years old at the time of Schneider's murder, July 9, 2005. Court records
show that he broke into the 93-year-old's Tyler home, stabbed, strangled, and
beat her, then laid her body on her bed and set her bed on fire. He left
Schneider's house with her car and her purse, which contained $40. He argued at
trial that his friend, Jamarist Paxton, forced him to break into the house with
him, and coerced him into cutting his hand so as to leave his DNA on-scene. But
police weren't able to find any evidence that would substantiate Williams'
claims about accomplices, and Paxton denied involvement. In Oct. 2006, Williams
was found guilty of capital murder (in addition to a number of other offenses)
and sentenced to death.
Williams' attorneys have argued in state and federal petitions for relief (as
well as a petition for a Certificate of Appealability) that Williams suffers
from a wide range of mental illnesses, including paranoid schizophrenia, with
which he was diagnosed when he was 20. They have tried to argue that his mother
suffered from mental illness, and that Williams had trouble functioning from an
early age. They also claim Williams was the victim of incompetent counsel, as
attorneys at trial failed both to establish Williams as the victim of mental
illness and to mitigate his standing as a future danger to society. Most
notably, his petitions for relief note, trial counsel erred by stating their
intent to establish mental illness before Williams received a court-ordered
psych exam, giving prosecutors the ability to refute counsel's claims without
any established medical standing.
Last September, attorneys Seth Kretzer and James Volberding presented Williams'
case to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes that the Justices would hear Williams'
mental illness claims. Specifically, records note, they wanted to prove that
one ruling - ex parte Briseno, which lays out 3 basic conditions to determine
competence - blocks Williams from arguing mental retardation on the basis of
Atkins v. Virginia (which placed a categorical ban on executing the mentally
ill, and was previously rejected by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals). The
Supreme Court denied that petition in early April, however, without comment or
explanation. Williams' attorneys do not plan to file any last-minute appeals.
Williams will be the 10th Texan executed this year, and 528th since the state
reinstated the death penalty in 1976. However, his execution coincides with
emerging reports that indicate the number of Texans being sent to death row has
now significantly decreased. In fact, jurors around the state have yet to
sentence anyone to death in 2015. The last person to receive such a sentence
was former Kaufman County attorney Eric Williams (no relation), who shot and
killed Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on Jan. 31, 2013, before
killing County D.A. Michael McLelland and his wife Cynthia 2 months later. He
was sentenced to death last December. It's the 1st time in more than 20 years
that the state has made it to July without issuing a new death sentence.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Attorney general seeks to overturn Wolf death penalty policy
Pennsylvania's attorney general asked the state Supreme Court this week to
nullify Gov. Tom Wolf's moratorium on executing death row inmates, describing
the policy as blatantly unconstitutional and a threat to the justice system.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane filed the request Monday in the case of Hubert
Lester Michael Jr., on death row for killing 16-year-old Trista Eng in York
County nearly 22 years ago.
"Never before has a member of the executive branch of government sought to
unilaterally negate a criminal penalty across an entire class of cases," the
state prosecutor's office wrote. "Never before has a member of the executive
branch affirmatively interfered with the proper administration of the law on
the grounds that the judicial branch of government has not functioned in a way
that meets a personal standard of satisfaction."
The current situation puts at risk the integrity of the constitution, and the
court should act to preserve it, the attorney general's office wrote.
The filing was made without fanfare, and Kane had not previously criticized
Wolf's stance in public. Wolf and Kane are both Democrats.
A Wolf spokesman said Wednesday that the governor is aware of the filing and
plans to respond.
"It essentially makes the same arguments as the arguments currently pending
before the court," said Wolf press secretary Jeff Sheridan.
Telephone messages left for Michael's lawyers were not immediately returned
Wednesday evening.
Kane's office attacked Wolf's policy of issuing a series of reprieves in death
row cases, at least until he can review the findings of an overdue study of
capital punishment.
If the Supreme Court agrees, it could clear the way for the state's 1st
execution since 1999, although the Department of Corrections has struggled to
obtain the specific drugs required for executions under state law.
The attorney general's office said Wolf's series of reprieves - he has issued 3
so far - "falls well outside the realm of his constitutional authority."
Eng disappeared July 20, 1993, as she was walking to a job at a fast food
restaurant in Dillsburg. Her body was found concealed in some weeds, shot 3
times with a .44-caliber handgun. Michael was arrested in Utah a week later for
jumping bail on a rape charge, and he later confessed to killing her.
Michael subsequently walked out of Lancaster County Prison in November 1993
under the assumed identity of a weekend cellmate serving a drunken-driving
sentence. He was arrested about 4 months later in New Orleans, pleaded guilty
to murder and kidnapping in 1994 and was sentenced to death in 1995.
"The governor is required by the constitution to respect the co-equal
judiciary's determinations in criminal cases," state prosecutors wrote this
week. "His faux 'reprieve' of Hubert Michael subverts that obligation."
Shortly after he took office earlier this year, Wolf announced the new policy,
saying the state's system is "error-prone, expensive and anything but
infallible."
He argued there was data suggesting defendants might be more likely to be
charged with capital murder and sentenced to death if they are poor or a racial
minority and the victim is white.
He has also issued a reprieve for convicted murderers Terrance Williams of
Philadelphia and Robert Diamond of Bucks County. The high court is considering
a challenge to Williams' reprieve filed by the Philadelphia district attorney.
In the Williams case, Wolf is represented by the governor's general counsel.
There are 180 men and 2 women on Pennsylvania's death row. The state has
executed just 3 people since capital punishment was made legal in the 1970s,
and all three had voluntarily relinquished their appeals.
(source: WTAE news)
*****************
Kane blasts 'blatantly unconstitutional' death penalty moratorium
Pennsylvania's attorney general says Gov. Tom Wolf's death penalty moratorium
is blatantly unconstitutional and wants the state Supreme Court to clear the
way for the state's 1st execution since 1999.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane filed a request Monday for extraordinary relief
in the case of Hubert Lester Michael Jr., on death row for killing 16-year-old
Trista Eng in York County nearly 22 years ago.
The filing attacks Wolf's policy of issuing a series of reprieves in death row
cases, at least until he can review the findings of an overdue study of capital
punishment.
The attorney general's office says that practice "falls well outside the realm
of his constitutional authority" and the justices should "reinstate the proper
operation of the criminal justice system."
Wolf and Kane are both Democrats.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death row costing millions, but no one put to death
The warden of Central Prison in Raleigh showed Channel 9's Dave Faherty into
the area where dozens of people have been put to death.
He showed the gurney that they use to restrain the inmates and the death
chamber where people can view the execution from an adjacent room.
The executions stopped in August 2006.
That's because of court challenges alleging lethal injection constitutes cruel
and unusual punishment.
High-profile capital murder trials haven't stopped.
For instance, the 2008 case of Lisa Greene cost taxpayers $750,000 in defense
costs. The Cabarrus County mother was accused of murdering her children and
setting her home on fire.
"The lawyers who are doing it certainly are not getting rich. I can promise
you," attorney Lisa Dubs said.
Dubs was not only Greene's court-appointed attorney, she also represented a
dozen other capital murder defendants.
She lost only once.
She said all of that money goes to run the public defender's office and to pay
for expert witnesses.
Every person tried for capital murder is appointed two lawyers who make $85 an
hour. She said many people mistakenly believe it's less expensive to put
someone to death.
"Study after study has shown that that's not the case. It is more expensive to
try a case capitally and execute someone than it is to house them for the rest
of their life without the possibility of parole," Dubs said.
"On down here. Straight down this path," daughter Chardae Wilson said.
Wilson lives feet away from where her father was shot and killed 24 years ago
in Hickory. 2 men were convicted of his murder and another murder and have been
on death row since 1993.
Wilson was just one when her father died. She favors capital punishment.
"They took my daddy out of this world. They snatched him out of my life at a
young age. I don't remember what he looks like or nothing. I truly believe the
same should happen to them," Chardae Wilson said.
Prosecutors said the decision on which cases should be capital is difficult.
They cost on average 4 times as much as other murder cases and the state spends
more than $10 million each year to defend them.
In Catawba County, nearly $50,000 has been spent on Sharman Odom even though
he's only been to court once since his arrest for the murder and sexual assault
of Maggie Daniels last summer.
District attorney David Learner has that case along with 2 others in his
district. He strongly supports the death penalty but says it's hard to carry
out, because of the appeals process.
"These cases are hard to try the 1st time. They are extraordinarily difficult
years later into the appeals process to try a 2nd time," Learner said.
Appeals have allowed some to sit on death row for decades.
Wilson said she is willing to wait hoping the men that kept her from having a
father will be executed.
"I want people to feel what I feel. I want their family to feel what I feel. It
is hard growing up without a daddy," Wilson said.
Attorneys say beyond the cost it's hard to find a jury willing to make the
decision for death.
"People want to be a lot more sure. Anybody who pays attention to the news
knows that there are people on death row and who were facing execution who were
in fact innocent," Dubs said.
(source: WSOC TV news)
FLORIDA:
After Supreme Court ruling on controversial drug midazolam, officials are
already petitioning to resume executions in Florida
The drab curtains rose slowly over the unfolding scene, where behind thick
glass, Darius Kimbrough was already strapped to a gurney with IV needles stuck
into his arms. His face was peeking out from underneath a white sheet. After
spending 19 years on Florida's death row, Kimbrough still had the same boyish
face he had when he was sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder and rape of
Orange County woman Denise Collins.
Official witnesses and Collins' family sat silently in the first two rows of
seats behind the glass while media witnesses, including myself, jotted details
in the back rows. I was the newly hired crime reporter at the The Gainesville
Sun in late 2013, and we were close enough to the Florida State Prison in
Raiford to cover all the executions. This would be the first out of many.
At 6 p.m., a chaplain turned off the noisy window air conditioner so the room
could hear Kimbrough's final monologue.
"Any last words?" an official asked him.
"No, sir," he said.
As the lethal injection cocktail of three drugs, including midazolam
hydrochloride, flowed through his veins, an intense wave of eerie calmness and
tension filled the room. The reporter in me continued to observe any subtleties
in Kimbrough's breathing and the movement of his lips, but the rest of me
disassociated. After 17 long minutes, a doctor proclaimed Kimbrough dead. His
body, now still beneath the white sheet, was the last thing we saw as the
curtain went down again.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of midazolam, the same
drug used to sedate Kimbrough. The justices ruled 5-to-4 in Glossip v. Gross
against death row inmates who argued that the use of the midazolam in the
lethal-injection procedure could violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel
and unusual punishment because it does not reliably leave inmates unconscious.
While the decision opens the door for states to continue using the sedative,
some states, like Ohio, have said they will not. In Florida, the state still
hasn't commented on what it plans to do regarding midazolam, but officials are
already petitioning for executions to resume.
The Glossip case arose after several botched executions across the country,
most notably one in Oklahoma, where the state executed Clayton Lockett using
midazolam for the first time. Lockett thrashed, moaned and tried to get up
several times, before ultimately dying 43 minutes later. Months later using the
same lethal cocktail, Oklahoma executed Charles Warner, who reportedly said as
the first drug was being administered, "My body is on fire."
Oklahoma's expert witness in the case, Dr. Roswell Lee Evans, testified that
with a high dosage of midazolam, inmates would not feel pain during the
execution. Evans, the dean of the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn
University, also told the district court that he has never used midazolam on a
patient or induced anesthesia.
Dr. David Lubarsky, chairman of anesthesiology at the University of Miami,
testified for petitioners in the case and says in an email that the drug is
commonly used as a pre-procedural drug to calm patients and block their memory,
but is not approved as a sole anesthetic under which one can perform a
procedure such as surgery.
The anesthesiologist also said that there are several issues with the drug,
including the fact that some patients do not become sedated, and that there can
be a ceiling effect, which Lubarsky compares to adding too much sugar to iced
tea - regardless of how much you add, no additional effect is achieved.
These complications can cause inmates who may not be sufficiently anesthetized
to experience air hunger, a sensation that feels like being buried alive, or a
painful chemical burning from the injection that stops the heart, he said. Both
situations can wake inmates who can't signal that they are conscious because
they have already been paralyzed.
"The use of paralytics as a second drug following both drugs does nothing but
mask potential problems with the lethal injection," he writes. "Paralytics are
banned by animal euthanasia protocols for this reason, and their use should
definitely be banned in lethal injection."
The Supreme Court found that the inmates had failed to prove midazolam is
ineffective, and they did not identify an alternative, less painful method of
execution, said Justice Samuel Alito Jr., writing for the majority. Robert
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that
because the court did not decide on the constitutionality of midazolam,
challenges to the drug can and probably will continue as long as states keep
using it.
"I think most states will not go forward with midazolam because a state
concerned with the integrity of the execution process would certainly be
extraordinarily reluctant to use a chemical that America has seen was
responsible for three botched executions," Dunham says.
Florida was the 1st state to use midazolam as part of the lethal injection mix,
during the 2013 execution of William Happ, who, according to reporters, moved
and remained conscious longer than previously executed inmates. Just hours
after the Supreme Court's June 29 decision in Glossip, Attorney General Pam
Bondi filed a motion to vacate the stay the Florida Supreme Court had imposed
on executions until the ruling by the higher court in the case. The stay
delayed Florida's execution of Jerry Correll, who was sentenced to die for
murdering his ex-wife, her mother, her sister and her daughter. His execution
was scheduled to take place last February.
Correll's attorneys filed a response last week asking the Florida Supreme Court
to continue the stay until the lawyers in the Glossip case had a chance to file
a motion for a rehearing, says Maria DeLiberato, an attorney with Capital
Collateral Regional Counsel - Middle Region, the firm defending Correll.
DeLiberato said the defense also asked the court to hold the stay until after
the Supreme Court considers Hurst v. Florida, a case that argues whether
Florida's death sentencing scheme violates constitutional amendments.
"His team is working very hard on this case," she says. "Mr. Correll has many
other issues pending in his appeal, including the constitutionality of
Florida's death penalty statute."
Gov. Rick Scott's deputy communications director John Tupps said in a statement
Wednesday, "Our office respects the court's decision and will continue to
follow the law. The governor's foremost concern is for the victims of these
heinous crimes and their families."
Journalist Ron Word covered about 60 executions as a reporter for the
Associated Press bureau in Jacksonville before it was closed in 2009. After so
long, the names and faces of the inmates mesh together, but Word can still
remember the jarring details: flames coming out of prisoners' heads as they
were executed on the electric chair, blood running down an inmate's shirt and a
serial killer who sang.
"It's a surreal experience," he said. "When I was covering them, I found myself
working so hard to get as many details that I concentrated on what I was doing
and not what was happening."
The last one he remembers clearly was the botched execution of Angel Nieves
Diaz in 2006. Diaz took 34 minutes to die after executioners improperly
inserted the IV needles into his flesh and not his veins, causing the lethal
injection chemicals to seep into his skin, Word said. Diaz shuddered, grimaced
and gasped for air during the procedure, and an investigation later found Diaz
had received chemical burns on his arms. After the execution, Florida
Department of Corrections officials told reporters it took longer for Diaz to
die because of a liver problem, which later turned out to be false.
"I think many of the victims' families supported the death penalty," he said.
"They wanted closure, but I don't know whether they got it or not. It would be
interesting to know if they found that comfort and peace they were looking
for."
After Kimbrough's execution, Collins' family was in tears at the media staging
area. Kimbrough's relatives were not allowed to attend the execution, which is
the norm for family members of the executed, said Alberto Moscoso, press
secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections.
Diane Stewart, Collins' mother, said the execution was peaceful, forgiving and
not something Kimbrough deserved after killing her daughter.
"He went out a lot neater than she did," she said.
But did he? In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the
Supreme Court had absolved Oklahoma from its duty against cruel and unusual
punishment by "misconstruing" and "ignoring" proof about the constitutional
insufficiency of midazolam.
"As a result, it leaves petitioners exposed to what may well be the chemical
equivalent of being burned at the stake," she wrote. "The contortions necessary
to save this particular lethal injection protocol are not worth the price."
****************
6 of Florida's most notorious botched executions in modern history
Florida has had its share of botched executions since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976. Prisoners were executed by the state using the electric
chair until 2000, when the Florida Legislature gave inmates the option of a
lethal injection, which included the sedative pentobarbital, a paralyzing drug
called vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride, the final drug that causes
cardiac arrest. Florida's supply of pentobarbital fell short when the drug's
makers refused to ship it, so in 2013, the state became the 1st in the nation
to use the sedative midazolam hydrochloride in the lethal cocktail. Below are
some of Florida's most notorious botched executions in modern history.
Jesse Joseph Tafero, 1990: During his execution via the electric chair,
Tafero's head erupted into flames, and it took 3 shocks for him to stop
breathing. Tafero, who was accused of shooting and killing 2 law enforcement
officers, was later found to be innocent.
Pedro Medina, 1997: Medina, who was convicted for the murder of a 52-year-old
Orlando woman, was executed using the electric chair. Witness reportedly saw
the chair malfunction and flames shoot out near the mask Medina was wearing.
Allen Lee Davis, 1999: The last Florida inmate executed using the electric
chair, Davis was convicted of killing a woman and her 2 children. During his
execution, blood poured from his face onto his shirt, and he was alive for
about 10 minutes after executioners pulled the plug.
Bennie Demps, 2000: Demps, who was accused of shooting 2 people during a
robbery and later stabbing a man to death in prison, was one of the first
Florida inmates to be executed using the new lethal injection procedure. The
execution team took 33 minutes to find his veins, and in his final words, Demps
told witnesses that he was in pain and had been "butchered."
Angel Nieves Diaz, 2006: Diaz, who was executed via lethal injection, took 34
minutes to die. Executioners inserted the IV needles improperly into Diaz's
flesh, and later gave him a 2nd dosage as Diaz gasped and grimaced. An
investigation later concluded that the lethal injection cocktail had seeped
into his skin and chemically burned both his arms. Diaz was accused of killing
a strip club manager in Miami.
(source for both: Orlando Weekly)
LOUISIANA:
Entire Louisiana death row doesn't need air-conditioning, 5th Circuit Court of
Appeals panel decides
Louisiana's death row doesn't need to be air-conditioned, but 3 condemned
killers with medical ailments who claim the extremely hot conditions there make
them more susceptible to heat-related injury are entitled to some relief, a
federal appellate court ruled Wednesday.
That relief could involve diverting cool air from the guards' pod on death row
into the death row tiers; allowing inmates access to cool showers at least once
a day; providing an ample supply of cold drinking water and ice at all times;
supplying personal ice containers and individual fans; and installing more ice
machines, a 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New
Orleans said.
The panel agreed with Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson, of Baton Rouge,
that Louisiana is in violation of the 3 prisoners' Eighth Amendment protection
against cruel and unusual punishment. The panel also said Jackson did not abuse
his discretion in issuing an injunction against the state.
"The scope of the injunction is another matter," Circuit Judge Edith Jones
wrote for the panel, which vacated the injunction and sent it back to Jackson
for reconsideration.
Jackson had ordered the state to develop a plan to reduce and maintain the heat
index - how hot it actually feels - at or below 88 degrees from April through
October in the death row tiers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The 5th Circuit panel said Jackson effectively required the state to install
air conditioning throughout the death row housing.
Air conditioning, the panel stated, is "unnecessary to correct the Eighth
Amendment violation." The 3 inmates are entitled to a remedy that reduces the
risk of harm to a "socially acceptable level," the panel said, adding that some
risk is "permissible and perhaps unavoidable."
"Even assuming that air conditioning is an acceptable remedy here - and it is
not - it is possible to provide air conditioning solely to these three
inmates," Jones wrote.
Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee, the 3 inmates who sued the state
for improved conditions, could be placed in cells next to the guards' pod, she
said. Jones noted that those cells are cooler than the ones farther down the
death row tiers. The state also could air-condition 1 of the 4 death row tiers
for the benefit of prisoners susceptible to heat-related illness.
The 5th Circuit panel sent the case back to Jackson to consider the possible
remedies.
The inmates' attorneys have the option of asking the three-judge panel or the
entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case. Several of those attorneys did not
respond Wednesday to requests for comment.
The state Department of Corrections said in a written statement that the 5th
Circuit ruling means Louisiana residents "will not have to bear the expense of
providing air conditioning while providing constitutionally appropriate
accommodations to DOC offenders." "The Department has maintained from the
beginning that providing air conditioning to offenders on death row goes far
beyond constitutional mandates and established case law," the statement read.
Prior to a summer 2013 trial of the inmates' lawsuit against the state, the
department offered to provide many of the remedies mentioned in the 5th Circuit
ruling, but the inmates' attorneys declined the offer, the statement pointed
out.
The department said it intends to review the ruling in greater detail in the
next several days.
In addition to finding the state in violation of the 3 prisoners'
constitutional rights, the appeals court panel - as Jackson did - found that
state corrections officials were deliberately indifferent to the risk facing
those inmates.
"Most strikingly, after this suit was filed, and during the court-ordered
monitoring period the Defendants surreptitiously installed awnings and began
soaking some of the tiers' exterior walls with water in an attempt to reduce
the interior temperature," Jones wrote. "Their trick backfired."
Jackson gave a stern lecture to several attorneys for the state in March 2014
but chose not to sanction them for what he termed their "lack of candor" about
the awnings and soaker hoses installed in summer 2013 while death row heat
indexes were being measured for the court.
Angola Warden Burl Cain admitted in federal court testimony in August 2013 that
he "messed up" by ordering awnings over death row windows and walls soaked with
water while the litigation was ongoing. Cain also said he did not intend to
violate Jackson's order to preserve evidence of prison temperatures that could
endanger the health of inmates.
Jones was joined in the 5th Circuit decision by Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker
Elrod. In a 1-paragraph dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Thomas Reavley said
he agreed with almost all of the majority opinion but would affirm Jackson's
injunction, "which in principal only orders the heat index in the Angola death
row tiers to be maintained below 88 degrees."
Jackson personally toured Angola in summer 2013 and issued his ruling in
December of that year following a trial.
The judge approved the state's court-ordered remediation plan in May 2014,
which included adding air conditioning, providing ice chests filled with ice
and allowing death row inmates once-daily cold showers. The 5th Circuit halted
the plan's implementation in June 2014 during the appeal process.
Ball, Code and Magee claim in their suit that heat indexes on death row reached
172 degrees in 2012 and 195 degrees in 2011, but the state disputes those
figures. The inmates contend their medical conditions are exacerbated by
extreme heat.
Ball has diabetes and is obese, Code is obese and has hepatitis, and Magee is
depressed and has high cholesterol, the 5th Circuit panel said in its ruling
Wednesday. All 3 also have hypertension.
Death row inmates have access to ice, but they can only personally access the
lone ice chest on each tier during the one hour a day they are allowed to walk
the tiers. The rest of the time, inmates depend on guards or other prisoners
for ice, the panel said. There is only 1 ice machine.
Windows that can be opened line the exterior wall of each death row housing
tier, and 30-inch fans next to the windows serve 2 adjoining cells, the appeals
court judges said. Each cell contains a 6-by-8-inch vent that draws air into
the cell. Sinks in each cell provide unlimited access to potable water, the
judges added.
Ball is on death row for shooting a beer delivery man to death during a 1996
armed robbery of a Gretna lounge. Magee was condemned to die for the 2007
shotgun killings of his estranged wife and their 5-year-old son in Mandeville.
Code was given the death penalty for the 1985 murders of 4 people at a house in
Shreveport.
(source: The New Orleans Advocate)
OHIO:
Ohio is having trouble finding execution drugs, state official says
Executions are set to resume in Ohio next year, but state officials are still
having trouble finding someone willing to sell them lethal-injection drugs,
according to the state's prisons director.
"We have had difficulty finding and acquiring drugs, period," said Gary Mohr,
director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Mohr, speaking Wednesday with Plain Dealer and Northeast Ohio Media Group
editors and reporters, declined to give specifics about where the state is
looking to buy supplies of sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, the 2
lethal-injection drugs allowed under Ohio's new execution protocol.
But Mohr confirmed that his agency has obtained an import license from the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration to buy execution drugs from overseas.
State legislators passed an execution secrecy law late last year in hopes that
it would persuade small-scale drug manufacturers called compounding pharmacies
to sell Ohio sodium thiopental or pentobarbital. But the American Pharmacists
Association, as well as many compounding pharmacists in Ohio, have voiced
reluctance to make and sell execution drugs.
Like other death-penalty states, Ohio has struggled in recent years to find
reliable sources of lethal-injection drugs, as European pharmaceutical
companies have stopped sales on moral and legal grounds.
Ohio hasn't executed anyone since January 2014, when murderer Dennis McGuire
took an unexpectedly long 25 minutes to die from a controversial 2-drug
cocktail of midazolam and hydromorphone. Ohio subsequently dropped further use
of those drugs.
Executions in the state are set to resume next January, starting with Akron
killer Ronald Phillips, convicted of the 1993 rape and beating death of a
3-year-old girl.
(source: cleveland.com)
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