Phillips, “tried every day to atone for his shameful role in Sheila’s death,” and had earned his certification to be a minister, his attorneys said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ohio’s last execution took place in January 2014, when it became the first state to use a combination of the sedative midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone to execute Dennis McGuire.
McGuire’s execution took 25 minutes and witnesses said he gasped and convulsed for 15 minutes.
Ohio implemented a moratorium in 2015 due to difficulty in obtaining lethal injection drugs. The following year the state said it would restart executions using a new drug protocol.
A federal court ruled in January that Ohio’s new lethal injection process was problematic, delaying executions. A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in April, but that ruling was overturned in June by the full court.
Phillips’ execution is the second scheduled for this week in the United States. Texas plans to execute TaiChin Preyor, 46, on Thursday for killing a woman in a 2004 home robbery near San Antonio. There have now been 15 executions in the United States this year.
(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago, additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; editing by Ben Klayman, G Crosse)
Article Appeared @http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/ohio-executes-man-after-delays-over-lethal-injection-drugs/