"Judge won't stop Ohio execution by untried drugs," is the breaking news this morning from Associated Press. It's filed by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via USA Today.
A federal judge on Monday refused to stop the upcoming execution of a condemned Ohio killer facing a never-tried lethal injection process that the inmate's attorneys say will cause him agony and terror.
Judge Gregory Frost's ruling moved Dennis McGuire one step closer to execution by the two-drug method developed after supplies of Ohio's former execution drug dried up. Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio Parole Board have both rejected McGuire's plea for clemency.
The judge said McGuire had failed to present evidence that he would suffer breathing problems alleged by his attorneys — a phenomenon known as "air hunger" — and said the risk to McGuire is within Constitutional limits.
"The evidence before this court fails to present a substantial risk that McGuire will experience severe pain," Frost said.
The judge rejected a similar request last year by death row inmate Ronald Phillips, who was set to become the first to die by the new method until Kasich delayed his execution to study the feasibility of Phillips' donating organs to family members.
On Saturday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published the editorial, "It's time to take the death penalty off life support."
Whatever Judge Gregory Frost decides on legal grounds, the scheduled execution should not go forward on practical, moral and ethical grounds. It's time we take the death penalty off life support -- as this editorial board long has advocated.
Nobody has much sympathy for McGuire, convicted of raping and killing a pregnant woman in 1989. Gov. John Kasich denied clemency on Tuesday.
But it's a wonder that we go to such effort to keep the death penalty alive when so many signs point to it not working in a way commensurate with a civilized society. Death-row exonerations based on DNA illustrate how likely it is that some innocent people are being put to death. Nor is the penalty reserved for the worst of the worst, but rather, too often, for those who can't afford good legal representation. There's no evidence it deters terrible crimes. And it's becoming clear that no manner of execution -- whether by firing squad, electric chair or drugs -- is free of the unconstitutional possibility of cruel and unusual punishment.
Ohio turned to its new execution cocktail – a combination of midazalon, a sedative, and hyrdromorphone, a painkiller -- after it was unable to obtain any pentobarbital, the drug it had been using until its European supplier halted sales for execution purposes.
It's time to abolish the death penalty in Ohio, as 18 other states have already done.
The News-Herald reports, "Ohio death penalty on life support; future of capital punishment in question," by Tracey Read.
“This is a very complicated issue,” Lake County Sheriff Daniel A. Dunlap said. “There are some people who are so dangerous to the community and have committed such incredibly heinous acts that in my opinion, they deserve the death penalty. But it has turned out to be an extremely expensive proposition with all the appeals, all the attorneys’ fees.”
Dunlap, who has mixed feelings about capital punishment, said he believes Ohio’s method of lethal injection is the most benign method.
“I think the electric chair is so antiquated,” he added. “To me, a proper cocktail of drugs that sedate a person is the most humane way.”
Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.
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