Dewine delays execution over drugs
After a federal court decision likening Ohio’s execution method to waterboarding and injecting fire into the vein of the condemned prisoner, Gov. Mike Dewine issued a reprieve Friday afternoon for a Columbus killer slated to die next month.
The new governor delayed the execution of Warren Henness from Feb. 13 to Sept. 12.
In the meantime, Dewine directed the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to assess Ohio’s options for execution drugs and to examine possible alternative drugs.
“The evidence presented in the federal court hearing made it clear that moving forward under the current lethal-injection protocol would subject Mr. Henness to needless pain and suffering, in direct violation of his rights under state law and the state and federal constitutions,” said Henness’ attorney, David Stebbins of the federal public defender’s office.
“We commend Gov. Dewine for his leadership and for ensuring the justice system operates humanely in Ohio.”the Rev. Jack Sullivan Jr., chairman of the board of directors for Ohioans to Stop Executions, said, “Gov. Dewine’s decision is very thoughtful and the right one. Given what is known about the death penalty and how unfairly it is administered, we hope the legislature will now act on reforms that have languished for years.”
Magistrate Judge Michael R. Merz said last week that one of the drugs in Ohio’s three-drug execution protocol is akin to “waterboarding,” generating a fatal pulmonary edema. The federal judge said expert testimony in his court shows that the other two drugs probably also produce agony for the condemned inmate.
“If Ohio executes Warren Henness under its present protocol, it will almost certainly subject him to severe pain and needless suffering. Reading the plain language of the Eighth Amendment, that should be enough to constitute cruel and unusual punishment,” Merz said.
But that didn’t stop the execution. Merz said he was forced to allow the lethal injection to proceed because of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The majority in the 5-4 ruling declared that if Henness Death Row inmates make the claim that the government’s methods of killing them are cruel, they must propose an alternative for their own execution that is “available, feasible and can be readily implemented.”
Henness was convicted of the March 20, 1992, slaying of Richard Myers, a lab technician from Circleville whom Henness lured to his Columbus home under the pretext that Henness needed substance-abuse counseling. Henness kidnapped Myers, shot him in the head five times, cut his throat and stole his car, checkbook and credit cards, according to Ohio Parole Board records. Henness and his wife and another man spent the following days using Myers’ money to smoke crack and abuse other drugs.
Five days after Myers disappeared, police found his body at an abandoned waterpurification plant off Nelson Road. He had been gagged and his hands bound behind his back with a coat hanger. His ring finger had been severed, and his wedding ring was missing.
A string of doctors testified before Merz that the first drug in the cocktail, midazolam, is a drug that can render a person unconscious but lacks the painkilling effects of opioids and other analgesics.
Matthew Exline, a doctor at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, testified that midazolam also can take away a person’s ability to express pain. They “look comatose,” but the drug hasn’t “actually taken away their pain,” Exline said. MEMORIAL HOSPITAL (MARYSVILLE)
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