After gaining national attention for botching it’s last execution in 2014, Ohio is trying yet another drug cocktail.
This time it will be following Oklahoma’s lead – another botched execution state – and using a 3 drug protocol that includes midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride. These drugs do not have to come from a compounding pharmacy, but would proceed “behind a secrecy law that frees it from accountability for unlawful and unsafe practices,” according to attorneys Allen Bohnert and Timothy Sweeney.
North Carolina enacted a law in 2015 which also allowed it to remove a physician’s oversight from the execution process and to secretly obtain drugs used for lethal injection.
Major drug companies have stopped selling drugs to states that have used them in executions. Ohio officials appear to have found a manufacturer willing to provide the individual drugs and Gov. Kasich may soon be in the position of deciding whether to proceed with an execution date.
