The delay means that there will be no executions in the state for at least two years.
Gov. John Kasich said the state would postpone the seven executions scheduled for this year as it tries to figure out which drugs to use in lethal injections. The state stopped using midazolam, a drug that caused much consternation and controversy when it didn’t quite work in several executions last year. In one case, it looked like one of the recipients struggled to breathe during a 26-minute execution that was supposed to take only a minute. It has happened in other states, too. One inmate in Oklahoma regained consciousness after receiving the midazolam dosage and struggled for almost 45 minutes before dying.
Ohio’s decision comes just days after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear a case involving midazolam and whether its use is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The case before the nation’s high court involves three death row inmates in Oklahoma who contend lethal injection using midazolam is not powerful enough, and anyone injected with it is therefore treated inhumanely. The justices will hear the case in April and are expected to issue a decision by the end of the summer.
The Supreme Court has already weighed in on the use of lethal injections, deciding in 2008 that it was humane, but will take it up again this year because the combination of drugs has changed since the court’s last decision. The drugs are different now than they were seven years ago because a European drug maker that supplied the drugs refused to continue to do so because the drugs were being used to induce death and Ohio and other states that use lethal injections have been looking for alternatives.
