COLUMBUS — It remains to be seen what, if any, effect Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Oklahoma’s method of lethal injection will have on how Ohio executes inmates.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court determined that it was not unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment for Oklahoma to use the sedative midazolam as part of its execution process. 

The ruling stems from a case in which condemned inmates sued, arguing that the sedative was unreliable in rendering inmates unconscious before other painful drugs were administered.

Ohio used the drug once intravenously, in conjunction with narcotic painkiller hydromorphone, and has already abandoned it. Ohio’s former protocol also would have used those two drugs as a backup intramuscular injection, but they were never used that way.

RELATED ARTICLE: Court’s approval of Arizona’s congressional mapping could affect Ohio

The Supreme Court’s finding that midazolam’s use was not unconstitutional, however, might make it easier for Ohio to settle on alternative drugs when it resumes executions.

“Midazolam is not currently part of Ohio’s protocol, and I will not speculate on what drugs will be used in the future,” said JoEllen Smith, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

The General Assembly dropped the electric chair as an execution option in 2001.

Ohio used midazolam in January, 2014, to put Dennis McGuire of Montgomery County to death. As in some Oklahoma executions, witnesses described McGuire as struggling against his restraints and making choking sounds before succumbing to the drugs’ effects in an unusually long process.

The state changed its protocol after that execution, but a federal court moratorium and another issued by Gov. John Kasich means the state will not carry out another execution until early next year.

In the meantime, the Ohio Supreme Court has continued to schedule executions out as far as three years.

Ohio’s current protocol would involve a massive dose of a single drug, pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, or thiopental sodium, a barbiturate. Both have been used in Ohio, but the state has struggled to acquire them because their European manufacturers object to their use in executions.

Compounding pharmacies also have been reluctant to make them amid ethical and legal concerns.

“Assuming we have no difficulties in finding midazolam, I suppose we should take another close look at that, since it has the [approval] of the Supreme Court …,” said Sen. Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati). He has been appointed to a legislative panel to look at Ohio’s death penalty. It has yet to meet.

“I have not talked to [DRC Director Gary Mohr] about what his plans are, but he may have decided to get away from midazolam because it was under challenge,” Mr. Seitz said.

Mike Brickner, senior policy director with the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling does not mean Ohio will go back to midazolam. “They’re searching for a new drug for executions, but with the secrecy bill passed last year, I don’t know a lot about what’s going on with that,” he said.

Last year Ohio enacted a law at least temporarily shielding identities of those who supply execution drugs.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

First Published June 30, 2015, 4:00 a.m.