On November 13, Ohio announced that it was adopt­ing a sin­gle-drug pro­to­col for lethal injec­tion, mak­ing it the first state to embrace this change. Ohio will inject inmates with a large dose of an anes­thet­ic, thiopen­tal sodi­um, which is sup­posed to both ren­der the inmate uncon­scious and even­tu­al­ly cause death. The state also said it will employ a back-up method of exe­cu­tion involv­ing the injec­tion of two anes­thet­ic drugs into the mus­cle of the defen­dant. In September, Ohio failed in its exe­cu­tion of Romell Broom, halt­ing the process after two hours when guards could not find a suit­able vein for the injec­tion. Subsequent exe­cu­tions were placed on hold as state offi­cials sought more effec­tive ways of admin­is­ter­ing lethal injec­tion. The state had been hav­ing a hard time find­ing med­ical per­son­nel to con­sult with about lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures because of pro­fes­sion­al and eth­i­cal rules that gen­er­al­ly pro­hib­it doc­tors, nurs­es and oth­ers from being involved in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Read the Associated Press arti­cle about this development below.

Ohio to switch to 1 drug for lethal injec­tion
By JULIE CARR SMYTH (AP)

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio on Friday became the first state to adopt a pro­ce­dure for lethal injec­tions that uses one drug, a method nev­er before tried on U.S. inmates.

The state filed papers in U.S. District Court say­ing it has decid­ed to switch from a three-drug cock­tail to a sin­gle injec­tion of thiopen­tal sodi­um into a vein. A sep­a­rate two-drug mus­cle injec­tion will be avail­able as a backup.

The deci­sion comes two months after an Ohio death row inmate walked away from an unsuc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion and sub­se­quent exe­cu­tions were put on hold.

Several states have faced sim­i­lar chal­lenges, but Ohio is the first to drop the three-drug approach in favor of one dose.

Richard Dieter, direc­tor of the non­prof­it Death Penalty Information Center, said the method has nev­er been attempt­ed on humans.

“Unfortunately, this is real­ly going to be an exper­i­ment,” he said.

“They’re human sub­jects and they’re not will­ing­ly part of this. This is exper­i­ment­ing with the unknown and that always raises concerns.”

He said the method has been used in euthanizing animals.

The death penal­ty has been tem­porar­i­ly on hold in Ohio while the state devel­oped its new poli­cies. The update fol­lows a botched exe­cu­tion on Sept. 15 that was halt­ed when exe­cu­tion­ers could­n’t find a suit­able vein on inmate Romell Broom.

Broom, who was con­vict­ed of kid­nap­ping, rap­ing and killing a 14-year old girl in 1984, com­plained in an affi­davit fol­low­ing the exe­cu­tion attempt that his exe­cu­tion­ers painful­ly hit mus­cle and bone dur­ing as many as 18 attempts to reach a vein.

The state said in a court fil­ing last month it was hav­ing a hard time find­ing med­ical per­son­nel will­ing to con­sult about injec­tion because of pro­fes­sion­al and eth­i­cal rules. The rules — which gen­er­al­ly pro­hib­it doc­tors, nurs­es and oth­ers from involve­ment in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — were deter­ring such per­son­nel from speak­ing pub­licly or pri­vate­ly about alter­na­tives to the state’s lethal injection process.

Ohio has put 32 peo­ple to death since 1999, when exe­cu­tions resumed in the state.

(J. Smyth, ​“Ohio to switch to 1 drug for lethal injec­tion,” Associated Press, November 13, 2009). Click here for more infor­ma­tion about Romell Broom’s botched exe­cu­tion. See also Lethal Injection and Botched Executions.

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