Lawyers acting for a prisoner on death row in Ohio were scrambling to delay his scheduled execution tomorrow morning using a new method of lethal injection that is widely used to put down pets. The procedure has never been tried out on humans and is tantamount, critics say, to human experimentation.Barring last-minute appeals and stays of execution, Kenneth Biros, 51, will be put to death using a massive overdose of an anaesthetic. It would be the first time that a single-drug lethal injection had been administered, in contrast to the triple-drug cocktail that has become the norm in the 37 American states that have death row prisoners.
Lawyers acting for a prisoner on death row in Ohio were scrambling to delay his scheduled execution tomorrow morning using a new method of lethal injection that is widely used to put down pets. The procedure has never been tried out on humans and is tantamount, critics say, to human experimentation.
Barring last-minute appeals and stays of execution, Kenneth Biros, 51, will be put to death using a massive overdose of an anaesthetic. It would be the first time that a single-drug lethal injection had been administered, in contrast to the triple-drug cocktail that has become the norm in the 37 American states that have death row prisoners.
COLUMBUS: Condemned killer Kenneth Biros could become the first person in America put to death with a single dose of an intravenous anesthetic instead of the usual -- and faster-acting -- three-drug process if his execution proceeds Tuesday. The execution could propel other states to eventually consider the switch, which proponents say ends arguments over unnecessary suffering during injection. California and Tennessee previously considered, then rejected the one-drug approach. Though the untested method has never been used on an inmate in the United States, one difference is clear: Biros will likely die more slowly than inmates put to death with the three-drug method, which includes a drug that stops the heart.
The execution could propel other states to eventually consider the switch, which proponents say ends arguments over unnecessary suffering during injection. California and Tennessee previously considered, then rejected the one-drug approach.
Though the untested method has never been used on an inmate in the United States, one difference is clear: Biros will likely die more slowly than inmates put to death with the three-drug method, which includes a drug that stops the heart.
Kenneth Biros #249 514 Race: W County: Trumbull Executed by the State of Ohio December 8, 2009
Race: W County: Trumbull Executed by the State of Ohio December 8, 2009
