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Execution Set to go Forward Despite Constitutional Concerns Over Lethal Injection Method

Execution Bed.
Statehouse News Bureau
Concerns over how exectuions are conducted are still being raised but scheulded executions will still go on.

A federal appeals court says an execution set for next May can go forward, because the condemned killer didn’t prove his claim that the state’s three-drug execution method is unconstitutional.

Attorneys for Wayne Keith Henness argued the mixture creates the sensation of waterboarding. But the 6thCircuit Court of Appeals said they didn’t prove that.

The ruling reverses a decision from a federal magistrate earlier this year, who had said the lethal injection method was cruel and unusual punishment. But Gov. Mike DeWine said because of problems getting execution drugs, he can’t see a method that works under state law. 

Henness is set to die in May, but the next inmate on the schedule is Cleveland Jackson of Allen County, on Nov. 13.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.