Lethal injection litigation creates de facto moratorium in Ohio and...

I have not been blogging much lately about lethal injection litigation because, ironically, I am busy trying to finish an article about all the lethal injection litigation.  But I must note that this report from the  Ohio Death Penalty Information blog suggests that Ohio has now joined the ranks of states with de facto moratoriums on executions resulting from lethal injection litigation.  According to this article in the Toledo Blade, the Ohio Supreme Court apparently refused to set execution dates for two death row defendants who have an on-going federal suit arguing that Ohio's lethal-injection protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Though I am doing this off the top of my head, here is a list of states in which there now seems to de facto moratoriums resulting from all the lethal injection litigation:

1. Arkansas
2. California
3. Delaware
4. Florida
5. Missouri
6. Ohio

This list includes quite a number of "major" death penalty states (though, of course, Texas each year usually executes 1/3 to 1/2 of all persons executed throughout the United States).

UPDATE:  Karl rightly notes in the comments that arguably three more states merit a place on this list: Kentucky, Maryland and New Jersey.  I left them off initially in part because it was arguably unlikely that these states would have had an execution in 2006 even without the lethal injection scrummages.  Also, it occurs to me that perhaps the federal system ought also to be on this list because three federal executions scheduled for the Spring were postponed while Hill was being considered by the Supreme Court, and I have not heard any word to suggest that these executions are moving forward.

Some recent related posts:

• Old school execution
• A medical perspective on the lethal injection mess
• Should part of the machinery of death be dyslexic?
• Back to the lethal injection scrummages
• The intriguing next chapter in the lethal injection saga
• Oklahoma ruling on lethal injection's constitutionality
• On the other side of the Hill
• The lethal injection litigation rages on and on and...