Deborah Denno comments to the Columbus Dispatch about the potential challenge to Ohio’s use of a single drug to execute convicted killers.
However, Ohio’s new method has doubters, including Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor and expert on lethal-injection legalities.
“There should be an enormous amount of focus on this,” she said. “This is one of the more important cases involving lethal injection in the last two or three years.”
Denno predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court, if asked, would not be likely to OK the one-drug method because it is not “substantially similar” to the three-drug procedure the high court approved in a pivotal Kentucky case last year.
Further, she questioned the state’s untested backup plan, which involves injecting large doses of two painkillers directly into an inmate’s arms, legs or buttocks. She said that method has not been used “any time, anywhere in the world.”
The entire story ran in the Columbus Dispatch.