Death Penalty News

Ohio Death Chamber COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio will use a dose of two drugs untried in the U.S. to put to death a condemned inmate who raped and killed a pregnant woman, according to a decision by the state prison system obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. The determination means the prisons agency was unable to obtain an unregulated batch of pentobarbital, the drug Ohio used until its manufacturer put it off limits for executions. Instead, the state will use drugs from its untested backup execution method in the Jan. 16 execution of Dennis McGuire, according to the decision contained in a memo by Southern Ohio Correctional Facility warden Donald Morgan released to the AP after a public records request. The untested method: an intravenous combination of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a painkiller. No state has put a prisoner to death with those drugs in any fashion. The drugs were part of a backup method in which they would be injected into an inmate...

Ohio Death Chamber A death row inmate who raped and killed his girlfriend's daughter doesn't deserve mercy, the Ohio Parole Board said Thursday, moving him one step closer to execution under the state's new, untested lethal injection process. The board by a unanimous vote rejected arguments raised by attorneys for Ronald Phillips that he was sexually, physically and verbally abused during childhood. The board said it wasn't convinced that Phillips has accepted responsibility for his crimes or changed for the better in prison. It also said evidence of his childhood abuse was not clear. "Phillips's crime is clearly among the worst of the worst capital crimes. Its depravity is self-evident," the board said. "Words cannot convey the barbarity of the crime. It is simply unconscionable." If his execution proceeds, Phillips would be the 1st person to die under the state's new execution procedures. They allow Ohio to continue u...