Thursday, March 10, 2011

Ohio Carries Out Execution With Single Dose of Pentobarbital

The 9th Execution of 2011

Johnnie Baston a convicted killer from Ohio became the first person in the United States to be executed with a single dose of pentobarbital, an animal tranquilizer that is normally used in combination with other drugs.

Baston was convicted of the 1994 murder of a Korean grocery store manager. He was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Corrections Facility in Lucasville, the home of Ohio's death chamber.

Ohio was the first state with the death penalty to move from a three-drug protocol for lethal injection to a single-drug protocol. Beginning with an execution in November of 2009, Ohio used a single dose of sodium thiopental. Ohio carried out ten executions using only sodium thiopental.

Oklahoma is the only other state to use pentobarbital, but they use in conjunction with other drugs. Washington adopted Ohio's single-drug protocol, and the two remain the only state using the single-drug protocol. It is unclear whether Washington will move to the pentobarbital for executions.

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