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For a second-consecutive year, no executions will be carried out at the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. And while opponents of the death penalty aren't celebrating the demise of capital punishment yet, there is a sense that some opinions are changing.

(Kiichiro Sato, Associated Press)

COLUMBUS, Ohio - This year will be the second in a row in which Ohio will not conduct any executions.

Ronald Phillips, convicted in a Summit County murder, is scheduled to die Jan. 12, 2017.

But until the state can procure more of the drugs, or changes the drugs it uses for lethal injection or changes its form of execution, there won't be more executions in Ohio.

"We're at a place where for progress to be made, if they're not going to fix it then they're going to have to end it," said Abraham Bonowitz, a spokesman for Ohioans to Stop Executions.

The group, along with 23 partners, plan to hold a series of events Tuesday at the Ohio Statehouse to lobby for their cause. There is a sense opinions are changing as the state wrestles with how to carry out executions and as more people become critical of the years - sometimes decades - required to carry out the sentence.

Here's some things to know about where the death penalty stands in Ohio.

Why did Ohio stop executions?

Ohio has had trouble getting drugs to use for lethal injections in great part because pharmaceutical companies don't want their medical products used for killing people.

Two years ago European pharmaceutical companies blocked further sales on moral and legal grounds. Ohio has looked for other options, but all have obstacles.

First it turned to a previously untried lethal-injection cocktail using drugs commonly found in hospitals. But the only time it was used became controversial because Dennis McGuire took 25 minutes to die. Other states tried the same drugs with more grisly results.

After that, state lawmakers passed a secrecy law hoping to encourage small-scale drug manufacturers called compounding pharmacies to make its lethal-injection drugs. But so far, none have been willing.

The state then looked to buy drugs from overseas, only to be told by the federal government that it would be illegal.

Shifting positions

While all of this has been happening views of the death penalty in Ohio and across the country have shifted, Bonowitz argues.

On Tuesday, Ohioans to Stop Executions will present retired Ohio Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton with the newly created Terry J. Collins Award. To award is to be presented annually to a leader in government who once supported the death penalty but later reversed positions, as Stratton did, and advocated to end executions.

Collins worked three decades in state corrections, including four years as director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. In February, shortly before his death, he wrote a column outlining his opposition to the death penalty.

Ohio Justice Paul Pfeifer, who co-authored Ohio's execution law while still in the legislature, also has expressed reservations. He testified in 2011 that he thought it was just a matter of time before the state would rethink capital punishment.

A bi-partisan bill that would abolish the death penalty in Ohio is pending in the Ohio House. It was introduced last July by Democratic Rep. Nickie Antonio of Lakewood and Republican Rep. Niraj Antani of Miamisburg.

Other states, too, have considered ending executions.

The Republican-dominated Nebraska legislature overrode a veto of that state's Republican governor last year on legislation that halted executions. Voters have since put in initiative on the November ballot to restore the death penalty.

Other issues were pushed in Wyoming, Kentucky, South Dakota, New Hampshire and Delaware in 2015, but stalled.

Change in Ohio

Ending use of the death penalty in Ohio wouldn't require changing the constitution. The General Assembly could pass legislation. But while some Republicans have expressed support for reforms, there's not broad support for taking capital punishment off the books, Bonowitz said.

Opponents might find support for reforms, though, such as exempting people with mental illness from the execution laws.

Bonowitz argues that the time it takes for a person to be executed will also work, ultimately, toward an effort to abolish the death sentence.

Of the 26 people on Ohio's death row with execution dates in 2017 into 2019, 17 have been on death row for at least 20 years. Five have been on death row for more than 30 years.

The long period involved in the appeals process just stalls a victim's family from finding closure, Bonowitz said.

"It's also become pretty clear that the method of execution has become so challenging it calls into question whether its worth keeping the death penalty," he said.