AP reports, "Ohio speeds atty access for condemned." It's written by Andrew Welsh-Huggins and is via Forbes.
Ohio is changing its process for placing intravenous needles in the arms of condemned inmates to give them quicker access to attorneys in case something goes wrong.
The change in the state's execution procedure settles part of a federal lawsuit that had challenged how Ohio puts inmates to death. It will take effect with Thursday's scheduled execution of a Toledo store owner's killer.
Ohio prisons spokesman Carlo LoParo tells The Associated Press that the process for inserting needles in an inmate's arm will be moved from a holding cell into the death chamber itself at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.
LoParo says an inmate could speak directly to an attorney watching the procedure if problems arise, and the attorney would have access to a death house phone.
Ohio is scheduled to carry out its first execution using pentobarbital, tomorrow morning. "Governor rejects clemency request," is the title of Alan Johnson's Columbus Dispatch report. It appeared in Saturday's paper.
Johnnie Baston didn't expect to receive mercy from Gov. John Kasich. He got what he expected.
Kasich yesterday rejected Baston's clemency request, virtually assuring that the convicted killer from Toledo will be executed as scheduled on Thursday. Baston has exhausted all legal appeals.
Kasich denied Baston's clemency request without comment. His decision agreed with the Ohio Parole Board, which had voted 9-0 against clemency. The board cited Baston's failure to accept responsibility for murdering Toledo shopkeeper Chong Mah, Baston's prior criminal history and the point-blank, execution-style killing.
Baston will be the first person in the U.S. to be executed solely with the drug pentobarbital, a fast-acting barbiturate. Ohio previously used sodium thiopental for more than a year, but switched because the only U.S. manufacturer stopped making the drug.
It would be Ohio's second execution of 2011; the ninth execution in the nation this year. To date, there have been 1,242 post-Furman executions in America since 1977. Karl Keys at Capital Defense Weekly notes execution dates in Texas and other states.
Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.
Comments