By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Opponents have lined up to testify against a fast-tracked legislative proposal to shield the names of companies whose drugs are used for lethal injections in Ohio.
The bill introduced a week ago and already set for a vote later this week in the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee also would bar companies from entering into contracts prohibiting states from acquiring drugs for executions.
The bill also prevents information about a lethal injection drugmaker or distributor from being disclosed in court.
Such a proposal raises separation of power issues at the state and federal levels and likely would be ignored by a federal judge, state public defender Tim Young planned to tell the committee.
The Republican-backed legislation is sponsored by state Reps. Jim Buchy and Matt Huffman and pushed by prosecutors, who say the bill is needed to help restart executions in the state. Buchy has said he believes the bill is constitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and other groups also planned to testify at Tuesday’s hearing.
Lawmakers are rushing the plan through before year’s end even though the state prisons agency first proposed the need for confidentiality almost two years ago.
Ohio’s execution policy calls for the warden over death row to determine a month ahead of time if the state has enough drugs for an execution.
The state’s next scheduled execution is Feb. 11, when Ronald Phillips is set to die for the 1993 killing of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter.
That puts the state’s deadline for obtaining its first choice — compounded pentobarbital — by early next year.
Executions have been on hold since January, when inmate Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted during a 26-minute execution that raised questions about the two-drug method used to put him to death that had never been tried. Problems with this combo were further underscored in July when an Arizona inmate took nearly two hours to die.
A federal judge delayed executions because of questions raised by McGuire’s death.