AP coverage is, "Condemned Akron man says doctor couldn’t find veins," by Andrew Welsh-Huggins. It's via the Akron Beacon Journal.
A prison doctor couldn’t find veins in the arms of a death row inmate during a pre-execution checkup, the inmate said Friday by video in rare court testimony as he challenges the state’s new, never-tried lethal-injection method.Condemned child killer Ronald Phillips said the doctor could find only a vein on his right hand following an examination Oct. 18 at the medical center at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, south of Columbus.
“I guess the Lord hid my veins from them,” Phillips said.
Phillips, 40, testified under questioning by his attorneys that the doctor said he wasn’t part of the state’s lethal-injection process when asked to do the checks. A prison nurse also participated.
Phillips said he had a fear of needles dating from childhood when his parents would sell drugs and let addicts shoot up in their kitchen in a tough Akron neighborhood.
He testified for more than an hour by video hookup from the prison where death row inmates are housed. He’s scheduled to die Nov. 14 for raping and killing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter, Sheila Marie Evans, in 1993.
And:
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction announced the new policy last month and said Monday it would use that process, which involves the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone.
Phillips’ attorneys say the department’s announcements came too close to the execution date to allow a meaningful challenge. The state says nothing is substantially different about the new system.
The hearing Friday began by focusing on the state’s decision to allow the prisons director or death house warden to delegate responsibility for changes in the execution process. That could include any deviation from the policy, down to paperwork documenting a particular step.
"Ohio Death Row Inmate Says Prison Doctor Couldn’t Find His Veins, Testifies Against New Execution Policy," is the Medical Daily post by Nadia-Elysse Harris.
After running out of pentobarbital in September, the Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction announced a new policy that would impose a two-drug lethal injection process for its executions. The process involves the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone.
Phillips, who would be the first to be executed under the new process, challenged it in federal court. His lawyers say that the new lethal cocktail may be cruel and unusual punishment, which would violate Philips constitutional rights under the eighth amendment.
Earlier coverage of Ohio lethal injection issues begins at the link.
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