Press Release 12/31/03

Today the Office of the Ohio Public Defender filed a Complaint in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Ohio under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the violation of constitutional rights of two death-row inmates. Plaintiff Lewis Williams Jr. is scheduled to be executed on January 14, 2004, and Plaintiff John Glenn Roe is scheduled to be executed on February 3, 2004. The litigation brought on their behalf seeks to suspend the executions.

The Complaint alleges that Ohio’s lethal injection protocol violates the inmates’constitutional rights by executing them with drugs that include a paralyzing agent veterinarians will not use for the euthanasia of cats and dogs. This paralyzing drug casts a chemical veil over the excruciatingly painful effects of death by suffocation and heart attack. Ohio’s lethal injection protocol includes an unreliable ultrashort-acting anesthetic that can leave the condemned inmate conscious but trapped in a paralyzed body wracked with the pain of suffocation and a heart attack.

The inmates seek a preliminary and permanent injunction preventing the state from executing them by the means currently employed for carrying out an execution by lethal injection in the state of Ohio—the only method of execution used in Ohio. This method of execution violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment.

Ohio’s lethal injection protocol involves administering three drugs: thiopental sodium, pancuronium bromide (paralyzing agent), and potassium chloride.

Mark J.S. Heath of New York, a medical doctor board certified in anesthesiology, maintains that "Ohio’s lethal injection protocol creates an unacceptable risk that the inmate will not be anesthetized to the point of being unconscious and unaware of pain for the duration of the execution procedure. If the inmate is not first successfully anesthetized . . . the pancuronium will paralyze all voluntary muscles and mask external, physical indications of the excruciating pain being experienced by the inmate during the process of suffocating (caused by the pancuronium) and having a cardiac arrest (caused by the potassium chloride)."

Dr. Heath’s opinion is corroborated by the experience of Carol Weihrer. According to Weiher’s affidavit, she underwent eye surgery.  The sedative she received was ineffectual and left her conscious during the entire surgery.  Because of the administration of a neuromuscular blocking agent like pancuronium bromide, however, she was unable to indicate her consciousness and horrific pain to the doctor removing her eyeball for surgical repair: "I therefore experienced what has come to be known as Anesthesia Awareness, in which I was able to think lucidly, hear, perceive and feel everything that was going on during the surgery, but I was unable to move.  It burnt like the fires of hell. It was the most terrifying, torturous experience you can imagine. The experience was worse than death."

Furthermore, the Complaint alleges, the state fails to provide rational, reliable directions or standards for the requisite training, education, and expertise of the personnel who carry out executions by lethal injection.

Click here for a copy of relevant pleadings posted on the Ohio Public Defender website.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Wendi Dotson

Office of the Ohio Public Defender

Telephone: (614) 644-1613

Fax: (614) 644-0703

E-mail: Wendi.Dotson@opd.state.oh.us