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Lethal Injection Round-Up

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Today's Cleveland Plain Dealer carries the editorial, "A time for death-penalty soul searching in Ohio."Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James M. Burge has ruled that the way Ohio exe cutes condemned prisoners violates the state's own death-penalty law. And he has offered a suggestion for fixing it. Still, his narrowly crafted decision ought to force all Ohioans to reconsider whether this state should be in the messy business of putting even the worst criminals to death. Based on medical testimony in his Elyria courtroom, Burge ruled that the three-drug cocktail used for executions here and in most other states does not meet the Ohio Revised Code's requirement that the condemned die "quickly and painlessly." Instead of the current procedure, Burge ordered the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to begin using a single, massive dose of barbiturate, not unlike what a veterinarian would use to euthanize an animal...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 20, 2008 (boomark / email).