Wednesday 9 December 2009

Stay Denied on Ohio One-Drug Execution


December 7, 2009 9:09 AM Posted by Kent Scheidegger 1 Comment No TrackBacks
As noted in Friday's Blog Scan, the Sixth Circuit on that day denied rehearing en banc to the challenge to Ohio's since-abandoned three-drug method of execution. That controversy is moot, and the court noted that the new one-drug method was not before it.

The day before, murderer Kenneth Biros had filed in the District Court a curiously titled "Emergency Motion of Intervenor-Plaintiff Kenneth Biros for a Temporary Restraining Order, or, at the very Least, for an Order under the All Writs Act Staying his Execution by Defendants and the State of Ohio." That motion was denied this morning in a grumbling 191-page opinion and order by District Judge Frost.

Biros's attorneys have asked the Sixth Circuit for a stay, Andrew Welsh-Huggins reports for AP. Also, Alan Johnson has this story in the Columbus Dispatch.
"The execution is scheduled to go forward using a totally new and untried procedure," Sweeney said. "We are making an effort to put the brakes on the process so everyone can take a step back and do a more careful, cautious review."

During the Baze controversy I did a radio call-in show, and a veterinarian called and said the whole three-drug controversy was stupid. Just use one drug, she said. We do it all the time with animals. So it is "untested" only on humans, and someone has to be first. How else do we develop a better method of execution? Are we expecting volunteers?

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