Ohio Execution Stayed at 11^th Hour to Consider Inmate Organ Donation

On November 13 Ohio Governor John Kasich stayed the exe­cu­tion of Ronald Phillips less than 24 hours before he was to be die by lethal injec­tion in order to con­sid­er Phillips’ request to donate a kid­ney to his moth­er. Kasich stat­ed, ​“I real­ize this is a bit of unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry for Ohio, but if anoth­er life can be saved by his will­ing­ness to donate his organs and tis­sues then we should allow for that to hap­pen.” Medical experts will now have time to deter­mine whether Phillips would be a suit­able donor for his moth­er, who is on dial­y­sis, and oth­er impli­ca­tions of the dona­tion can be considered. 

In 1995, Delaware death-row inmate Steven Shelton was allowed to donate a kid­ney to his moth­er. His death sen­tence was lat­er reversed for oth­er rea­sons. However, in Florida, Joseph Brown was not allowed to donate a kid­ney to his broth­er, who lat­er died. Brown was freed from death row after being exon­er­at­ed in 1987. 

Phillips also offered to donate his heart to his sis­ter after he was exe­cut­ed, but dona­tions of vital organs have not been allowed dur­ing U.S. exe­cu­tions because of eth­i­cal issues. Texas allows gen­er­al pris­on­ers to donate non-vital organs, but not those on death row.

Phillips’ exe­cu­tion has been resched­uled for July 2, 2014. He was to be exe­cut­ed on November 14 using a drug com­bi­na­tion nev­er tried before in the U.S.