Ohio Delays All Executions To 2017 Over Drugs

Many firms have refused to sell the deadly drugs, causing states to delay lethal injections or seek other drug mixtures to carry out executions.

Monday’s announcement means nearly half of the 25 inmates on Ohio’s death row are receiving a de-facto stay of execution – a few of whom will remain alive for as many as three extra years beyond their original execution date.

The next execution in Ohio is now set for January 2017, according to a release from the state’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC).

Ohio’s next execution had been scheduled for 21 January, when Ronald Phillips was due to die for raping and killing his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter in a 1993 attack.

Execution dates for 11 inmates scheduled to die next year and one scheduled for early 2017 were all pushed into ensuing years through warrants of reprieve issued by Gov. John Kasich. “The new dates are created to provide DRC additional time necessary to secure the required execution drugs”.

Ohio, like many states, was forced to find new execution drugs after European-based manufacturers banned USA prisons from using their drugs in executions – among them, Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital.

Since then, Ohio has had ongoing difficulty purchasing different drugs with state officials even looking to foreign sources.

The Food and Drug Administration warned the state in August against unlawfully trying to import drugs from overseas.

Ohio’s last execution occurred in January 2014 when killer Dennis McGuire was put to death.

The state scrapped plans to use that combination in future executions and said inmates would be executed with either sodium thiopental or pentobarbital – which it has been unable to obtain.