Ohio Executes Ronald Phillips, Resumes Executions After 3½-Year Pause

After a hia­tus of 3½ years, Ohio resumed exe­cu­tions on July 26, putting Ronald Phillips (pic­tured) to death with a three-drug com­bi­na­tion of the seda­tive mida­zo­lam, the par­a­lyt­ic drug rocuro­ni­um bro­mide, and the heart-stop­ping drug potas­si­um chlo­ride. Phillips was pro­nounced dead at 10:43 a.m. It was the state’s first exe­cu­tion since the botched exe­cu­tion of Dennis McGuire on January 16, 2014, and the 15^th in the U.S. in 2017. 

Phillips’ exe­cu­tion is the first of four exe­cu­tions that Ohio has sched­uled for this year and of 27 sched­uled through 2020. Ohio’s resump­tions of exe­cu­tions is expect­ed to con­tribute to a small increase in exe­cu­tions in the U.S. this year, although the annu­al total is like­ly to remain among the low­est in the last quarter century. 

Phillips was exe­cut­ed despite the efforts of a diverse range of groups, includ­ing for­mer attor­ney gen­er­als, jus­tice reform advo­cates, exonerees, faith lead­ers, and edi­to­r­i­al writ­ers, urg­ing Governor John Kasich not to resume exe­cu­tions before Ohio addressed seri­ous sys­temic flaws in its death penal­ty process that had been iden­ti­fied by a statewide death penal­ty task force. 

Phillips had sought a stay of exe­cu­tion until an ongo­ing chal­lenge to Ohio’s lethal-injec­tion process is final­ly resolved, and his appli­ca­tion drew sup­port from fif­teen phar­ma­col­o­gy pro­fes­sors who filed a brief call­ing mida­zo­lam ​“unsuit­able” and its as an exe­cu­tion drug ​“pro­found­ly trou­bling.” Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg dis­sent­ed from the denial of the stay, say­ing the court’s action con­sti­tut­ed a ​“fail­ure to step in when sig­nif­i­cant issues of life and death are present.” 

Ohio offi­cials said the exe­cu­tion pro­ceed­ed with­out inci­dent. Allen L. Bohnert, one of the lawyers who rep­re­sents pris­on­ers in the ongo­ing lethal-injec­tion lit­i­ga­tion, released a state­ment say­ing: ​“While Ohio will try to char­ac­ter­ize today’s exe­cu­tion as ​‘prob­lem-free,’ do not be fooled.” By choos­ing to inject the par­a­lyt­ic drug ​“extreme­ly quick­ly,” he said, Ohio ​“hid[ ] the real facts behind an arti­fi­cial chem­i­cal cur­tain, … mask­ing the prob­lems with mida­zo­lam seen in mul­ti­ple oth­er exe­cu­tions.” He urged the state to ​“heed the warn­ings of numer­ous phar­ma­cists, phar­ma­col­o­gists, and anes­the­si­ol­o­gists … and imme­di­ate­ly halt any fur­ther use of mida­zo­lam and the par­a­lyt­ic drug in lethal injection executions.” 

Ohio has exe­cut­ed 53 pris­on­ers since the turn of the cen­tu­ry—the most of any north­ern state and more than the com­bined total of every oth­er north­ern state east of the Mississippi. Ohio ranked with Texas and Oklahoma as the only states to have exe­cut­ed at least one pris­on­er each year from 2001 to 2014.

The Supreme Court also denied Phillips’ peti­tion to review his claim that the death penal­ty should not be applied to teenage offend­ers. Phillips was nine­teen at the time of the murder.