« SCOTUS argument transcripts for two criminal justice cases argued today | Main | Ohio Supreme Court hears challenge to state's new sex offender registration rules »

November 4, 2009

"Ohio GOP lawmakers: Execution process can be fixed"

The title of this post is the headline of this notable new AP piece discussing Ohio's on-going efforts to try to fix its execution protocol.   Here are excerpts from the piece:

Two Republican lawmakers advising Ohio's Democratic governor on changes to the state's lethal injection process say it shouldn't be hard to fix the system.  The lawmakers, both proponents of capital punishment, are among state legislators helping Gov. Ted Strickland find medical personnel willing to help the state improve its injection process.  Both say they got involved to make sure recent problems with lethal injection don't lead to attempts to eliminate the death penalty.

"We want to make sure our well-established judicial rights to administer capital punishment in appropriate cases are preserved and will not be defeated by new and ingenious means of dodging the executioner," Sen. Bill Seitz, of Cincinnati, said Wednesday.  Seitz said he's talked to lawyers and doctors but has yet to find anyone willing to come forward.  But his conversations have suggested changes Ohio could adopt, ranging from using a retired doctor during executions to requiring that inmates drink enough liquids before an execution to keep their veins healthy.

Sen. Tim Grendell has contacted current and retired doctors looking for advice. "I find it difficult to believe there isn't a functional solution to this problem," said Grendell, of Chesterland.

The death penalty is temporarily on hold in Ohio while the state develops the 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....

Also Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court set two new execution dates.  The court set a May 13 execution date for Michael Beuke, 47, convicted of the 1983 murder of Robert Craig, a man he met while hitchhiking on Interstate 275 in southwest Ohio.  The court also set a June 10 execution date for Richard Nields, 59, sentenced to die for the 1997 death of his girlfriend, 59-year-old Patricia Newsome, at their home in Finneytown in southwest Ohio.

Given that Ohio does not seems to be making much progress on a new execution protocol, and given that litigation seems inevitable whenever a new protocol is adopted, I would not bet on these new execution dates holding.  But if there is a persistent will, I suspect Ohio will eventually find a way to get back in the business of executions.

November 4, 2009 at 08:08 PM | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e20120a654a1cd970b

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference "Ohio GOP lawmakers: Execution process can be fixed":

Comments

If you can use a stamp, you can carry out an execution. This method is endorsed by a bunch of tort lawyers.

http://www.hsinjurylaw.com/library/dangerousdefective-drugsfentanyl-patchconnected-with-deaths-overdoses.cfm

Peel and apply 10 Duragesic (fentanyl) patches anywhere on the body. The latter may be tied down, squirming, and uncooperative. Does not matter. Just stick the patches on. Make it 20 patches. The prisoner may enjoy a nice opiate high on the way out.

Add 20 clonidine patches in between to enhance the Duragesic patches.

This method took 2 minutes and an internet browser to find. Government does nothing well. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the dumbass lawyer CCE. It is stupid on purpose. To generate make work.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 5, 2009 12:16:26 AM

While Ohio twists itself into a pretzel trying to insure that an adjudicated killer will feel the minimum pain during his execution, the most prominent crime story in Ohio goes utterly unmentioned on this site, namely, the story of the released sex offender/rapist whose house and back yard were recently discovered to contain eleven corpses in various states of decomposition.

Is the need to save money by slimming down the prison population THAT urgent? Why was this man ever put back on the street? Was the problem that the system was too harsh with him, or too lackadaisical?

We quibble over THIS drug protocal versus THAT drug protocol, knowing that anything we come up with, ever, will not satisfy the abolitionist crowd that's behind the current litigation. Meanwhile, the abolitionists -- some of whom are wont to call their OPPONENTS barbarians -- snooze through the unfolding story of this horrifying mass murder that occurred under their noses.

The sensitivities of the abolitionist movement are selective indeed.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Nov 5, 2009 12:52:02 AM

Bill: The sensitivities of the criminal lover left are not selective. If a measure increases lawyer jobs, it supports it.

I would like to see a duty of the police to individual citizens in a federal statute. If the police commits police malpractice and a citizen is injured as a result, they need to make the crime victim whole. They do not pay for crime victimization. They pay for their deviations from police standards of due care that result in citizen injury. You will then see lawyers screaming about their injured clients, the crime victims.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Nov 5, 2009 1:04:33 AM

I have a new post up on the Sowell case now, Bill. I look forward to your comments to that post concerning how we can modify our sex offender registry systems to be more effective.

Posted by: Doug B. | Nov 5, 2009 1:25:05 AM

Post a comment

In the body of your email, please indicate if you are a professor, student, prosecutor, defense attorney, etc. so I can gain a sense of who is reading my blog. Thank you, DAB