Ohio man faces first execution by single injection

Last updated at 14:48 GMT, Tuesday, 8 December 2009

A convicted Ohio man on death row is expected to become the first person in the US to be executed with a lethal, single-drug injection.

Kenneth Biros, 51, was sentenced to death for the murder of a 22-year-old woman in 1991.

Ohio is the first US state to adopt the new method using a dose of thiopental sodium instead of a drug combination.

Critics say the method, which may take twice as long to take effect, is human experimentation. Officials deny that.

The new method is being introduced because it is alleged that prisoners can suffer extreme pain if the first drug of the trio normally administered fails to work effectively.

'Experimental use'

The change of approach follows a failed attempt to execute a prisoner in Ohio in September, when officials struggled for two hours to try to find a suitable vein into which to inject the drugs.

All executions were put on hold while another method was sought.

Should the single-drug method fail to work this time, officials will be able to inject other drugs directly into the muscles.

Ohio inmates have usually taken about seven minutes to die after receiving a lethal injection, the Associated Press news agency reports.

But Julie Walburn, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, estimated it would take from 15 to 30 minutes for Biros to die using the new method.

Another official from the department brushed aside suggestions that the technique was experimental, as some activists have claimed.

"It's not an experiment drug, it's used in existing protocol and it's used in hospitals all across this nation and in the world," Terry Collins said, referring to its application to anaesthetise patients ahead of surgery.

Other states which have the death penalty are reported to be watching closely but some - including Florida, Kentucky, Texas and Virginia - have said they intend to keep the triple-drug method.

Of the 36 death penalty states which have lethal injection as a means of execution, all but Ohio use the three-drug method.