Showing posts with label ohio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ohio. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Ohio executes inmate with untried injection method-Single injection.


Kenneth Biros was convicted of murdering Tami Engstrom.Rape and killed the victim , disembowed her and scattered her bodies across states.Stabbed 91 times.

Ohio put to death a convicted killer on Tuesday with a single dose of a lethal chemical, the first time the method has been used in the United States.

U.S.

Kenneth Biros, 51, convicted of the 1991 murder of a woman, was pronounced dead nine minutes after receiving an injection of the anesthetic sodium thiopental at the Southern Ohio Correction Facility in Lucasville, a prison spokeswoman said.

Prison spokeswoman Julie Walburn said the execution proceeded without any problems. Executioners, however, made nine attempts before finding a vein to inject Biros with the drug, commonly known as Sodium Pentothal.

"Sorry from the bottom of my heart," Biros said in the death chamber before the execution was carried out. Witnesses said he blinked a few times and then appeared dead.

Ohio's new method replaced a faster-acting three-drug cocktail commonly used in the United States and was put in place to try to end a lawsuit that charged the cocktail, which also starts with Sodium Pentothal, could cause pain.

Ohio's method is similar to how animals are euthanized. Biros' lawyer called the untested process "experimentation," but courts rejected the inmate's appeals.

NEW PROTOCOL


Executions were temporarily put on hold in Ohio in September after executioners tried unsuccessfully for two hours to find a suitable vein to inject inmate Rommel Broom, jabbing him repeatedly. Broom remains on death row.

Under the new protocol, if a suitable vein is not located for the single injection, executioners will inject two potent painkillers -- hydromorphone and midazolam -- into the muscles of the inmate's arm, leg or buttocks.

The two drugs, administered in high doses, halt breathing.

Fordham University Law Professor Deborah Denno, an expert on lethal injection, said there were serious problems with the new single-drug method, including the difficulties executioners can have finding a vein.

She said the backup plan could lead to a "slow, lingering death with the inmate in a state of confusion, disorientation, and intense psychological anguish and torment."

An unofficial seven-month moratorium on U.S. executions ended in April 2008 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled lethal injection was not cruel and unusual punishment. The three-drug method employs a sedative to cause unconsciousness, a second drug to paralyze the body and a third to stop the heart.

The execution marked the second time in three years Ohio has revised the method. Lethal injection was questioned in 2006 after a man who was supposed to be unconscious suddenly struggled and said the drugs were not working.

Ohio then created a "set-to-die" revision requiring the warden to call out the condemned man's name and shake and pinch his shoulder to ensure unconsciousness after the sedative was administered.

Biros was the 51st person executed in the United States in 2009 and the fifth in Ohio this year.

He was convicted of strangling to death Tami Engstrom, 22, to whom he had offered a ride from a bar. Biros also raped, beat, and stabbed his victim 91 times before disemboweling her and scattering the body parts across two states.

Biros requested a last meal of cheese pizza, onion rings and fried mushrooms, chips with French onion dip, cherry pie, blueberry ice cream and a Dr. Pepper soft drink.

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

Ohio serial killer suspect pleads insanity-Ohio suspect faces arraignment on 11 murder counts


This Nov. 13, 2009 file photo shows Anthony Sowell in Cleveland. The registered sex offender attacked 14 women and killed 11 of them, leaving their remains in and around his home, a prosecutor said Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009 in announcing a grand jury indictment against the suspected serial killer.

A registered sex offender accused of killing 11 women and leaving their remains in and around his Cleveland home has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to all charges.

Fifty-year-old Anthony Sowell (so-WEHL') was arraigned Thursday by video hook-up from jail.

Sowell was indicted Tuesday on 85 charges, including murder, rape, assault and corpse abuse. He is accused of murdering 11 women and could get the death penalty if convicted of any of the killings.

Ten bodies and a skull were found at his Cleveland home. On Wednesday, FBI agents with cadaver dogs searched another house where Sowell lived before going to prison for 15 years for a 1989 attempted rape. No bodies were found.

A prosecutor asked for bond in the amount of $14 million, but the judge ordered Sowell held without bond.




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