Ohio is delaying executions until at least 2017 as the state has a hard time obtaining supplies of lethal injection drugs, therefore delaying capital punishment for a full two years, the prisons department announced Monday.
One of the drugs, Sodium Thiopental, is no longer manufactured by FDA-approved companies and the other, Pentobarbital, drug makers has put off limits for executions. Ohio obtained a federal import license to search for supplies overseas, but has been told by the FDA that such a move is illegal. The state raised the issue again with the FDA earlier this month, claiming that they state can obtain a lethal-injection drug from overseas without violating any laws, but the FDA has yet to give them a response.
The result is 25 inmates, who all have execution dates beginning in January 2017 are now scheduled through August 2019. Ohio last put someone to death in January 2014. The new dates are needed to give the prisons agency extra time, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction explained in a statement. The agency "continues to look for every legal way possible to obtain the drugs necessary to carry out court ordered executions. However, over the past few years it has become terribly difficult to get a hand of those drugs because of severe supply and distribution restrictions," the statement said.
