In a ruling this week that could help determine how Ohio executes prisoners, U.S. Supreme Court justices, on a 5-4 vote, upheld the use of a controversial and risky lethal-injection drug.

Ohio used the drug, midazolam, in a botched execution in 2014, in which 53-year-old Dennis McGuire, convulsing and gasping, took more than 25 minutes to die. Seven months later, an anesthesiologist testified in a civil rights lawsuit filed by McGuire’s children that McGuire experienced “true pain and suffering.”

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Given botched executions with midazolam in Ohio and other states, including Oklahoma and Arizona, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction should not resume using it for executions. Despite the Supreme Court’s narrow decision, this unreliable drug would continue to expose the state to undue liability and constitutional risks.

Ohio needs to find more reliable, effective, and humane drugs for lethal injections. And it needs to develop this new protocol far more transparently.

Last year, Ohio enacted a dangerous and shortsighted law that at least temporarily shields the identities of companies that supply execution drugs. That makes it far more difficult for the public to understand and influence how the state carries out its death penalty law.

To avoid constitutional challenges or federal intervention, those who support Ohio’s death penalty must remain vigilant and aware. A lack of national standards for how executions should proceed in the 32 states that have the death penalty, along with a nationwide shortage of lethal drugs, makes such diligence even more urgent. During the debate on midazolam, two Supreme Court justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, suggested they are ready to ban the death penalty altogether.

Shielding the manufacturer of execution drugs from public scrutiny, at a time of enormous nationwide controversy over how states conduct executions, undermines democracy and makes future problems with Ohio’s death penalty law more likely. Moreover, excluding from public record — and thus mandatory disclosure — information and records about compounding pharmacies that manufacture the state’s lethal-injection drug violates Ohio’s open records law.

These defaults keep citizens from holding their government accountable as the state seeks to carry out executions in a proper and constitutional manner. The law also makes it more difficult for courts to monitor executions.

Aside from the law, the state corrections department has been too reluctant to share routine information about what lethal-injection drugs the state is considering and why. Department leaders need to be reminded that taxpayers are picking up the tab for the $1.5 billion a year DRC spends.

Given the climate of secrecy in Ohio, it’s unclear whether the high court’s ruling will make it more likely that the state will use midazolam again. “Midazolam is not currently part of Ohio’s protocol, and I will not speculate on what drugs will be used in the future,” DRC spokesman JoEllen Smith said this week.

Midazolam should not be an option for Ohio. The state has time to find a more efficient, reliable, and humane way of conducting executions.

The Blade’s long-standing support for the death penalty compels us to urge Gov. John Kasich to ensure that executions in Ohio continue to meet the standards of the U.S. Constitution and a civilized society.

First Published July 2, 2015, 4:00 a.m.