Death Penalty Ohio

A federal magistrate judge on Thursday declared Ohio's three-drug lethal injection protocol unconstitutional and halted the execution of three death row inmates.

(The Associated Press)

DAYTON, Ohio -- A federal magistrate judge on Thursday barred the use of a three-drug cocktail the state of Ohio planned to use to execute death-row inmates, declaring the method the state prefers to be unconstitutional.

Magistrate Judge Michael Merz of Dayton also halted the executions of three inmates scheduled to be executed in the coming months, two of which came from Northeast Ohio.

Merz, in his 119-page order, ruled that there were enough problems with all three of the drugs Ohio intends to use in its execution protocol to warrant this disallowance. Two states, Arizona and Florida, have discontinued the use of one of the drugs, named midazolam.

"The Court concludes that use of midazolam as the first drug in Ohio's present three-drug protocol will create a 'substantial risk of serious harm' or an 'objectively intolerable risk of harm' as required by (Supreme Court precedent)," Merz wrote.

(You can read the full order here or at the bottom of this story.)

The ruling is a success for the inmates challenging Ohio's execution protocols and anti-death-penalty advocates who have sought to chip away at the state's ability to execute people since executions resumed in 1999. It may be short lived, though, as the ruling is all but guaranteed to be appealed.

A spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's office said the office is reviewing the decision. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said in an email that the department "remains committed to carrying out court-ordered executions in a lawful and humane manner."

Ohio hasn't executed anyone since January 2014, when it took killer Dennis McGuire 25 minutes to die from a previously unused execution drug combination. McGuire was administered a cocktail that included midazolam. Witnesses said he appeared to gasp several times during his execution and made loud snorting or snoring sounds.

State officials and the courts put executions on hold until the state picked a new lethal-injection drug combination of midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride last October. The challenge that led to Merz's ruling Thursday was also borne out of McGuire's execution.

During a hearing earlier this month, Merz heard testimony on all three drugs. His ruling Thursday said the state cannot use any cocktail that contained potassium chloride or rocuronium bromide, a paralytic agent, since the state told a court in a previous proceeding that it would not use such drugs during future executions.

Those scheduled to die in the next few months included:

- Ronald Phillips, an Akron man convicted 1993 for raping his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter and beating her to death. His execution was scheduled for Feb. 15.

- Gary Otte, an Indiana man who shot and killed two Parma residents during robberies in 1992. His execution was scheduled for March 15.

- Raymond Tibbetts, a Cincinnati-area man convicted of murdering Judith Sue Crawford and Fred Hicks in 1997. His execution was scheduled for April 12.

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

In 2014, state lawmakers passed a secrecy law hoping to encourage small-scale drug manufacturers called compounding pharmacies to make its lethal-injection drugs. That law was challenged, though courts have declined to declare the law unconstitutional.

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