Ohio's new lethal injection system is akin to burning inmates at the stake or burying them alive, say federal defense lawyers rushing to stop the state's first execution in three years.
Ohio's three-drug method, announced Oct. 3, is worse than a similar procedure used years ago, and multiple problems remain with the way the state prepares and carries out executions, federal public defenders said in a Wednesday court filing.
The filing attacks the first drug in that process — midazolam, meant to sedate inmates — as unlikely to relieve an inmate's pain. The drug was used in problematic executions in Arizona and Ohio in 2014. But the U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld the use of midazolam in executions in a case out of Oklahoma.
According to the filing, because midazolam is not a barbiturate and cannot relieve pain, inmates are likely to experience "severe physical pain," mental suffering and anguish,
As a result, "such an execution would be inhuman and barbarous, akin in its level of pain and suffering to being buried alive, burning at the stake, and other primitive methods long since abandoned by civilized society," the filing said.
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