AP posts, "Ohio: Akron girl’s killer to get untried 2-drug injection for execution," by Andrew Welsh-Huggins. It's via the Akron Beacon Journal.
Ohio will use a dose of two drugs never tried before in a U.S. execution to put to death a condemned inmate who raped and killed his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter, the state prisons agency said Monday.Lawyers for death row inmate Ronald Phillips immediately sued to put off his Nov. 14 execution, saying Ohio delayed the announcement so long it didn’t leave enough time to fully investigate the new method.
The agency made the decision because it couldn’t obtain a supply of its former execution drug, pentobarbital, from a specialty pharmacy that mixes individual doses for patients, prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said. The agency had considered using a compounding pharmacy after its supply of federally regulated pentobarbital expired last month.
Instead, the state will use an intravenous combination of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller, in the Nov. 14 execution of Ronald Phillips of Akron.
Those drugs already are included in Ohio’s never-tried backup execution method, which requires them to be injected directly into an inmate’s muscle. No state has put a prisoner to death with that combination of drugs.
And:
Attorneys for Phillips filed documents in federal court Friday asking a judge to let them expand a current lawsuit to challenge the use of compounded pentobarbital. They filed an updated complaint Monday just hours after the state’s announcement that it was selecting the two other drugs instead.
The state said it’s reviewing the filing. Judge Gregory Frost scheduled a hearing for Friday.
Earlier coverage of Ohio lethal injection issues is at the link.
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