Ohio executes inmate with untried injection

Ohio put to death a convicted killer on Tuesday with a single dose of a lethal chemical, the first time the method has been used in the United States.

Kenneth Biros, 51, sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of a young woman, died Tuesday morning from an intravenous injection of the anesthetic thiopental sodium at the Southern Ohio Correction Facility in Lucasville, state officials said.

The single-drug method replaced a faster-acting lethal three-drug cocktail commonly used in the United States. The new method was put in place as a way to end a lawsuit that said the three-drug cocktail could cause pain.

Ohio's method is similar to how animals are euthanized. Biros' lawyer called the untested process "experimentation," but courts rejected the inmate's appeals.

Executions were temporarily put on hold in Ohio in September after executioners tried unsuccessfully for two hours to find a suitable vein to inject inmate Rommel Broom, jabbing him repeatedly. Broom remains on death row.

Under the new protocol, if a suitable vein is not located for the single injection, executioners will inject two potent painkillers -- the narcotic hydromorphone and the sedative midazolam -- into the muscles of the inmate's arm, leg or buttocks.

The two drugs, administered in high doses, halt breathing.

An unofficial seven-month moratorium on U.S. executions ended in April 2008 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled lethal injection was not cruel and unusual punishment.

In the method using a three-drug cocktail, a sedative causes unconsciousness, a second drug paralyzes the body and a third stops the heart.

The execution marked the second time in three years Ohio has revised the method. Lethal injection was questioned in 2006 after a man who was supposed to be unconscious suddenly struggled and said the drugs were not working.

Ohio then created a "set-to-die" revision requiring the warden to call out the condemned man's name and shake and pinch his shoulder to ensure unconsciousness after the sedative was administered.

Biros was the 51st person executed in the United States in 2009 and the fifth in Ohio this year.

He was convicted of strangling to death Tami Engstrom, 22, to whom he had offered a ride from a bar. Biros also raped, beat, and stabbed his victim 91 times before disemboweling her and scattering the body parts across two states.

Biros requested a last meal of cheese pizza, onion rings and fried mushrooms, chips with French onion dip, cherry pie, blueberry ice cream and a Dr. Pepper soft drink.