ELYRIA — Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection today, but ordered the state to use only one drug to carry out the executions of Ruben Rivera and Ronald McCloud if the accused killers are convicted and sentenced to death.

Defense attorneys for the pair – who are charged in separate Lorain murders – had asked Burge to declare that lethal injection violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and a state law requiring executions to be quick and painless.

The state presently uses a three-drug cocktail to execute inmates. The first drug, a sedative, is supposed to render a condemned inmate unconscious. The second drug paralyzes the inmate while a third drug stops his heart.

Burge concluded there was no way to be certain that the first drug had knocked the inmate out before the subsequent drugs – which would cause excruciating pain if the inmate were still conscious – are administered.

Burge ordered the state to use only the sedative to execute Rivera and McCloud if they are ever taken to the state’s death house in Lucasville.

Prosecutors and the Attorney General’s office had argued that while there was no way to guarantee that a mistake wouldn’t happen, the possibility of an error occurring was remote. The state’s execution protocols are sound, they said.

Defense attorneys had conceded, after testimony from two anesthesiologists, that the sedative was enough to cause death on its own in a more humane fashion.

  For more on the story, check out Wednesday’s Chronicle.

 

 

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