Ohio begins use of new lethal injection process

[pumpkinpie]

World News 10:10 a.m. Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Supreme Court won't block 1st US 1-drug execution
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS


The Associated Press

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block the execution of an Ohio condemned killer who would become the first person in the U.S. to die by lethal injection with a single drug rather than a three-drug method.

Enlarge photo FILE - In this undated file photo released by Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Kenneth Biros is shown. Biros was convicted of killing Tami Engstrom in February 1991. The condemned Ohio killer could become the first person in the country put to death with one dose of an intravenous anesthetic if his execution proceeds Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009. The execution method, which replaces the faster-acting three-drug process could propel other states to eventually consider the switch. (AP Photo/Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, File)


Biros had argued the state's new method would be painful. The state's switch to one drug was meant to end a lawsuit that claims the three-drug system could cause severe pain, and experts have agreed that the single anesthetic will not cause pain.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) — The state of Ohio is preparing to execute a condemned killer who would become the first person in the U.S. to die by lethal injection with a single drug rather than a three-drug method.

The state's switch to one drug was meant to end a lawsuit that claims the three-drug system could cause severe pain. Experts agree the single anesthetic will not cause pain.

Prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn says Kenneth Biros drank four cups of water late Monday night and an additional four cups Tuesday morning.

Walburn says she's not sure why Biros is asking for so much water.

Lawmakers who gathered advice for the state when it changed its execution process to a single drug heard some recommendations that inmates drink more to improve their vein access.

www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/supreme-court-won-t-231498.html

[pumpkinpie]

Ohio executes inmate using single-drug method
December 8, 2009 12:33 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- An Ohio inmate, convicted of killing and dismembering a 22-year-old woman in 1991, was executed Tuesday using a new, untested one-drug method of lethal injection, state officials said.

Kenneth Biros, 51, was pronounced dead at 11:47 a.m. at a prison in Lucasville, Ohio, the state attorney general's office said in a written statement.

Biros' execution is the first in Ohio since September, when the governor and federal courts halted capital punishment in the state after a botched attempt to execute another prisoner, Romell Broom. The prison staff could not find a suitable vein for the injections.

The one-drug method had never been tried on a U.S. death row inmate. It relies on a single dose of sodium thiopental injected into a vein. A separate two-drug muscle injection was available as a backup, officials said. The one-drug method has been used to euthanize animals.

The same drug, sodium thiopental, at a much lower dosage, is the first ingredient in the three-drug method previously used in Ohio, as well as in all but one of the other 34 states that allow the death penalty.

Some capital punishment opponents claim the sodium thiopental, which renders the prisoner unconscious, can wear off too quickly, and that some prisoners would actually be awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continues.

Biros was involved in litigation challenging the three-drug method and received a stay of execution in 2007 because of his involvement in the suit, according to minutes of a November parole board meeting posted on the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections' Web site.

His attorney, Timothy Sweeney, had also objected to the one-drug method, saying it was unconstitutional. Sweeney wrote in an appeal that use of the one-drug method would amount to "human experimentation, pure and simple."

But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month denied Biros' request for a stay, concluding that since Ohio had announced it would change its protocol and rely on the one-drug method, Biros' argument regarding the three-drug method was moot. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court without comment denied a request to stay the execution Tuesday.

Biros, 51, was convicted of killing Tami Engstrom near the town of Warren. He met the woman at a bar and offered to drive her home. He later admitted robbing and attempting to rape her. Prosecutors said Biros dismembered Engstrom and spread her body parts around northeast Ohio and neighboring Pennsylvania.

The crime was "particularly heinous, with 91 pre-mortem wounds," according to the clemency report. Biros claimed he acted in a fit of drunken rage.

During its meeting last month, members of the state parole board heard a prerecorded statement from Engstrom's mother, Mary Jane Heiss, according to the meeting minutes. Heiss said her health was not good but she was saving her strength to attend Biros' execution.

"Since her daughter's death, she has endured nearly 20 years of constant pain and nightmares," the minutes said. "She believes that the nightmares will end with the execution. It makes her sick that Biros tortured and brutally murdered her daughter."

The board voted 7-0 to deny Biros clemency.

In attempting to execute Broom in September, authorities tried unsuccessfully for hours to find a vein to administer his lethal injection. Afterward, Gov. Ted Strickland announced he would delay the executions of two other men until March at the earliest. Broom's execution has not been rescheduled.

Ohio has put 32 people to death in the past decade.

www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/08/ohio.execution/

[Mo-DAWG]

this is kinda like the method they use to put animals to sleep ... i remember when we had to put my mom's cat to sleep (the ole boy was 17 and suffering from cancer) .. so i asked the vet about the method of putting the cat to sleep and she told me that she ll use an anesthetic so it would fall asleep and once it was asleep she would massively overdose this anesthetic which would cause full cardiac arrest then .. she promised our ole boy wouldnt suffer but go very peaceful ..

i am not a doctor so i cant say if this method will be as peaceful for humans as it is said to be for animals (i know this comparison lacks "tact" so bear with me) ..