Tomorrow’s scheduled execution of Kenneth Biros may be a first in U.S. history. Biros, convicted of killing and dismembering a woman in 1991, has been delivered to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville where he awaits lethal injection by a single drug. No one has ever been executed by this novel method, which some observers fairly note is a form of “human experimentation.”
The one-drug protocol was embraced by state authorities last month after Ohio botched the execution of condemned murderer Romell Brown — the latest in a long line of instances demonstrating the state’s cruel and inhumane ineptitude at dispatching of the condemned. Biros is scheduled to be injected intravenously tomorrow with about 14 times the dosage of anesthetic used in other states’ lethal injection protocols.
Experts indicate that the one-drug method is likely to induce death more slowly than Ohio’s former method, which states have relied on as the exclusive method of lethal injection since restoration of capital punishment in the 1970’s. As a fallback, in case Ohio once again proves a clumsy killer, state authorities will employ a two-drug injection into Biros’ muscle.
Biros’ attorneys are appealing the methodology of his scheduled execution to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Biros is also appealing a prior Sixth Circuit decision okaying his execution to the U.S. Supreme Court, where different understandings of the death penalty produced an unusually public rift between two justices just last week.
Barring a surprise intervention by the courts, Biros’ execution will be attempted at 10:00 a.m. CST on Tuesday, December 8, 2009.
[This post draws heavily on material initially published by Chris at ACSblog, photo by Sarah G]