USA - Ohio. AG DeWine: Executions on hold until legislators change law.

DeWine: Executions on hold until legislators change law. Ohio will not resume executions next year unless legislators enact 2 key changes in state law, Attorney General Mike DeWine said yesterday. "You're not going to see a death penalty take place until the General Assembly takes action," DeWine said during a joint meeting with David Pepper, his Democratic opponent in the Nov. 4 election. The execution issues deal with providing anonymity for "compounding pharmacies" and immunity protection for physicians who help the state with legal support for executions, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said. Tierney said DeWine thinks two pieces of legislation, not yet final, must be passed in order to meet stipulations set down by U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost. Frost halted all lethal injections in Ohio until early next year because of concerns about the drugs and how they are used. Ronald Phillips is set to die on Feb. 15, followed by 5 other executions next year. Ohio and most other states have exhausted their options for purchasing chemicals used in lethal injections, largely because manufacturers, many of them European, will not sell drugs for executions. States are now turning to compounding pharmacies, which combine materials into compounds on demand for customers. The proposal would allow the pharmacies to do that without being cited as the source, Tierney said.