Despite on-going lethal injection litigation, Ohio schedules two more executions

As detailed in this new AP piece, Ohio's Supreme Court has scheduled two more executions and the queue for the death chamber now extends all the way to Fall 2013.  Here are the basics:

The Ohio Supreme Court has set execution dates for a man who killed a hotel clerk in northeast Ohio and a double killer whose victims included a suburban Cleveland police officer. The court’s announcement today makes it 13 executions scheduled through September 2013.

The first new date from the court, Jan. 16, 2013, is for Ronald Ray Post. He was sentenced to die for shooting the clerk at the Slumber Inn in Elyria in 1983. The second date, Sept. 25, 2013, is for Harry Mitts. He was sentenced to die for killing John Bryant and Garfield Heights Sgt. Dennis Glivar in 1994.

The Ohio Parole Board meanwhile is weighing whether to grant clemency to Reginald Brooks, scheduled to die next month for killing his three sons in 1982.

A list of all the 20 most-recent scheduled executions in Ohio is available on this webpage, which reveals that Ohio has not actually completed a scheduled execution since May 2011.  This recent period with no executions is the combined result of still-pending lethal injection litigation and Governor Kasich's recent decisions to commute a few death sentences.  For this reason and others, I think one would need a well-functioning crystal ball to figure out how many of the currently scheduled 13 executions will actually take place over the next two years in Ohio.

Some recent related posts:

• Federal district judge finds Equal Protection Clause violated by Ohio's injection processes
• New Ohio lethal injection ruling provides lessons in litigation realities, the rule of law and a law of rules
• Why Smith Equal Protection ruling and execution stay in Ohio is a huge (and national?) new death penalty story
• Ohio's queue for executions now 11 deep and more than a year long
• Ohio decides not to appeal federal district court ruling in Smith halting execution
• In wake of lethal injection ruling and stay, Ohio Governor postpones next execution (for 18 months!?!)
• Ohio ready to try to get its machinery of death back in operation
• Ohio Gov Kasich postpones another execution based on lethal injection litigation
• "Kasich commutes convicted killer's sentence to life without parole"
• Following Ohio Parole Board's recommendation, Gov Kasich commutes another murderer's death sentence