State appeals Biros execution stay

State appeals Biros execution stay

by Ed Runyan

December 22, 2006 1:18 pm

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Attorney General’s office has appealed a ruling by a federal judge Thursday that postpones the Jan. 23 execution of Kenneth Biros.

Biros, convicted in 1991 of killing Tami Engstrom of Hubbard, joined a civil rights lawsuit late this year that says lethal injection as a method of carrying out the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.

Judge Gregory L. Frost of the Southern District of Ohio granted an emergency preliminary injunction Thursday that stayed Biros’ execution until a further order from the court.

The attorney general’s office filed a one-paragraph notice of appeal Friday to the U.S. District Court in Columbus, with no elaboration.

In his ruling, Judge Frost noted that Biros’ attorneys presented evidence from the states of Florida and California regarding problems this month with recent lethal injections there that have placed executions on hold.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the suspension of executions in Florida after an execution took 34 minutes and required a second injection to kill convicted murderer Angel Nieves Diaz.

Also, a federal judge ruled that California must overhaul its lethal-injection procedures because its current procedures may inflict unacceptable levels of pain.

Judge Frost wrote that there is a “growing body of evidence calling Ohio’s lethal injection protocol increasingly into question.”

He wrote he will not “turn a blind eye” to evidence that contradicts an expert’s opinion that all persons given the dose of sodium thiopental prescribed under Ohio’’s lethal injection protocol would be rendered unconscious and would stop breathing within one minute.”

Biros is one of 10 convicted killers from Trumbull County on Ohio’s Death Row.