Lawrence Reynolds, who was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on October 8 in Ohio, received a stay today (Oct. 5) from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The court’s stay was based on unre­solved issues in Ohio’s lethal injec­tion pro­to­col that were brought to the sur­face by the unsuc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion of Romell Broom on September 15. The major­i­ty wrote: ​“These dis­turb­ing issues give rise to at least two ques­tions: first, whether Ohio is ful­ly and com­pe­tent­ly adher­ing to the Ohio lethal injec­tion pro­to­col giv­en (a) their fail­ure to have a con­tin­gency plan in place should periph­er­al vein access be impos­si­ble, (b) issues relat­ed to the com­pe­tence of the lethal injec­tion team, and (c) oth­er poten­tial defi­cien­cies; and sec­ond, whether these instances present suf­fi­cient new, addi­tion­al fac­tors to revive Reynolds’ Eighth Amendment claims oth­er­wise extin­guished by Cooey II (an ear­li­er lethal injection challenge).”

In his con­cur­ring opin­ion, Judge Cole not­ed that Ohio can­not under­take anoth­er exe­cu­tion until it has been resolved whether ​“Broom has already suf­fered an Eighth Amendment vio­la­tion by being sub­ject­ed to this failed exe­cu­tion attempt. Even if Reynolds’ exe­cu­tion sim­i­lar­ly was halt­ed part­way through, at that point he already may have suf­fered con­sti­tu­tion­al harm under Ohio’s pro­to­col. Although the details of the failed Broom exe­cu­tion have not yet ful­ly emerged, the ini­tial reports sug­gest that the exe­cu­tion attempt could pro­vide unique­ly rel­e­vant evi­dence in sup­port of the propo­si­tion that there is a ​‘demon­strat­ed risk of severe pain’ under the revised Ohio pro­to­col. See Baze v. Rees, —U.S. —, 128 S.Ct. 1520, 1537 (2008).”

Following the stay grant­ed by the Sixth Circuit, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland issued a for­mal stay of exe­cu­tion for both Reynolds, until March 9, 2010, and Darryl Durr, until April 20, 2010. Other reprieves may be grant­ed if the lethal injec­tion issue is still unresolved.

(Reynolds v. Strickland, No. 08 – 4144, (Order grant­i­ng stay, 6th Cir. Oct. 5, 2009); see also ​“Governor’s Statement Regarding Reprieves,” Press Release, Office of the Governor, Oct. 5, 2009). Read the entire Sixth Circuit Opinion here. See DPIC’s pages on Lethal Injections and the case of Romell Broom.

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