Without lethal injection, how will Ohio carry out executions?
WhentheOhio COLUMBUS—
Supreme Court affirmed ShawnGrate’s death penalty sentenceThursday, onequestion remained unanswered: How would it happen?
It’s a question without a clearanswerforall138people sitting on Ohio’s death row. Their sentences are on indefinite hold after Gov. Mike DeWine announced lethal injection — the state’s only method for carrying out the ultimate punishment — isn’t possiblebecausepharmaceutical companies no longer sell drugs for this purpose.
Ohio already had an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment, so in effect, DeWine just said out loud what state policy has been for the past couple of years.
It’s “pretty clear,” at least to the governor, that 2021’s scheduled executions aren’t happening, DeWine said during a year-end interview with The Associated Press.
DeWine’s decision leaves the state with three options: Lawmakers could legalize a newmethodof execution (or reinstate an old one). Legislators could do nothing and let the moratorium continue indefinitely.
“Or ‘Plan C’ would be to end the use of the death penalty,” Sen. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, said. “Thenew line in the sand for a capital case would be life without parole or, as some people call it, death in prison.”
Antonio wants Ohio to join the 22 other states that have banned capital punishment, and she has support from Republicans like Sen. KristinaRoegner, R-Hudson, whose “pro-life” beliefs have led to a “change of heart” on the issue.
Other options
House Speaker Bob Cupp, R-Lima, said he hasn’t spoken to the governor yet. But other Republicans, such as Rep. Bill Seitz, R-GreenTwp. (Hamilton County), want to look at other options for carrying out executions.
The challenge will be to
find a method “the Supreme Court has already blessed with being OK,” Seitz said. The nation’s high court has upheld challenges to execution by hanging, the electric chair and firing squad.
“If youtry something else – such as nitrogen gas – you’re going tohave to run the traps all the way to the Supreme Court because thedeath penalty opponents are going to say the Supreme Court has never said that’s a permissible way to execute somebody sowe’re going to fight you on that,” he said.
Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi have approved the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners. Washington state allows prisoners on death row to request hanging, and Utah permits inmates sentenced before 2004toaskfor afiring squad.
“We should not go back to these barbaric practices,” Antonio said. “I would be absolutely opposed to that.”
The U.S. Department of Justice appears to bemoving in that direction. It recently expanded its execution protocols from lethal injection to “any other manner prescribedby the lawof the state in which the sentence was imposed.”
The amended rule goes into effect on Christmas Eve and couldimpactfive federal prisoners scheduled for execution beforePresident-elect Joe Biden takes office.
“Seven other states and the federal government proceeded with executions in 2019 and 2020,” said Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association
Director Lou Tobin.
“Two of those states used the same drug cocktail Ohio uses. How are these other states and the federal government getting the drugs but Ohio can’t? I think that question shouldbeanswered before we talk about what the alternatives are.”
Anonymity drugs
Manufacturers stopped selling drugs for lethal injections back in 2011. Pfizer, the last manufacturer of execution drugs, ended its sales in 2016. The decisions left states scrambling. Sometried alternatives like midazolam, a controversial drug that led to botched executions in Arizona and Oklahoma.
Texas tooka differentpath. The Lone Star State started retesting and extending the expiration dates on its remaining supply. According to the Texas Tribune, the state has 16 doses of pentobarbital. Twelve of them expire in June 2021.
Tobin recommendedOhio lawmakers reinstate a confidentiality statute that concealed the identities of drug manufacturers selling their products for lethal injection. The anonymity might persuade a company to quietly reverse its position.
Ohio’s last execution was July 18, 2018, under Republican Gov. John Kasich. DeWine has delayed all scheduled executions since taking office. At first, he ordered the prison system to look for alternative lethal injection drugs. Ohio uses a threedrugcocktail, but other states
like Texas have switched to a single-drug method.
DeWine changed course thisweek, telling the AP that “lethal injectionappears tous to be impossible fromapracticalpointofview.” Hesaidhe still supports capital punishment, but he’s “much more skeptical” about whether it deters crime, “which to me is the moral justification.”
Repeal bill
Antonio took the governor’s statements to mean he might consider signing a death penalty repeal bill.
“I can’t get into his head or look into his heart, but I think he’s signaled it inmany ways,” she said.
The Lakewood Democrat sponsored a bill to repeal the death penalty in Ohio, and if it fails to pass in this General Assembly she plans to reintroduce it come January 2021.
“Facing life without parole is, insomecases, more frightening than the death penalty,” Antonio said. “I have sat and talked to people on death row, and they have said to me, ‘I don’t want to growold and die here. Iwant them to put me to death.’”
Incoming Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said it’s on the governor to come up with a list of alternatives.
“The question is: Well, what is it this governorwould consider,” Huffman said. “If the answer is he doesn’t want to do it, there is no reason to have the conversation ... Maybe we don’t have to change the law.”