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Ohio will continue using drug deployed in botched executions – VICE News

A federal judge ruled in January that the state's lethal injection methods were unconstitutional. After going more than three years without killing any death row inmates, Ohio is set to resume executions after a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the state can continue using midazolam, the controversial lethal injection drug present in several recent botched U.S. executions. Ohio wasn't the first state to use midazolam in an execution — Florida was, in 2013 — but McGuire's execution drew national criticism. "Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essentially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether."Since McGuire's death, midazolam has been used in botched executions in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alabama. (That reluctance led Ohio, citing difficulties in obtaining new drugs, to voluntarily stop executing inmates until this year.)


While case law generally forbids drawing blood or performing surgery without consent or warrants, the law is murkier on forced catheterization. The other complaint was filed against law enforcement agencies on behalf of five adults who were allegedly subjected to forced catheterization as part of criminal investigations. Hospital staff held the boy down and inserted the catheter while he screamed because he was not toilet trained and could not produce a sample in a cup, the lawsuit said. "Subjecting anyone to forcible catheterization, especially a toddler, to collect evidence when there are less intrusive means available is unconscionable," said Heather Smith, executive director of the ACLU of South Dakota. Lower courts have ruled in favor of law enforcement in a handful of catheterization cases, but those rulings are not binding on federal courts in South Dakota.