USA - Ohio. Kenneth Biros was executed, becoming the 1st person in the United States to be executed using a 1-drug lethal injection protocol

Kenneth Biros was executed, becoming the 1st person in the United States to be executed using a 1-drug lethal injection protocol. Biros, 51, white, died at 11:47 a.m. in the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville following the intravenous injection of single, large dose of thiopental sodium, a powerful anesthetic. It was the 1st execution in the nation involving 1 drug as opposed to the 3-drug cocktail protocol abandoned by Ohio but still used in 35 other states. Biros was convicted and sentenced to death for the Feb. 7, 1991 murdering of Tami Engstrom,  22. He dismembered her body, leaving body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Biros' attorneys, argued unsuccessfully to the courts that the execution should be stopped because it involved "experimentation" using untried and untested procedures. The new protocol was unveiled Nov. 13, 2 months after the execution of Romell Broom was halted when prison medical technicians spent 2 hours unsuccessfully trying to attach IV lines. Broom has gone to federal court to challenge the state's right to try to execute him a 2nd time. Prison officials did not have to rely on a new backup method involving large doses of 2 high-potency painkillers. Biros was the 5th person to be executed in Ohio this year and the 33rd to die since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. Biros becomes the 51st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1187th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (see also March 20, 2007 and Nov. 13, 2009).