Ohio death row inmate claims tolerance to lethal injection drugs

In an interesting legal maneuver, Michael Beuke, who's scheduled to be executed Thursday for a 1983 violent crime spree that included aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder, three counts of aggravated robbery, and three counts of kidnapping, filed motion last week for another restraining order to stop that execution.

Beuke's motion, AP articles report, "say a barbiturate he takes for a seizure disorder could limit the effectiveness of midazolam, the first drug called for in Ohio's backup execution method that injects drugs into muscles… a twist on a similar argument made last month by another Ohio death row inmate who claimed he had an allergy to anesthesia that could affect his execution. [ Motion for TRO ]

The federal courts rejected Darryl Durr's claim and he was executed April 20.

"Ohio adopted its backup method last year when it switched to a single dose of a powerful anesthetic as its primary execution method," the AP article said. "The backup method has never been used, meaning there is no precedent in other executions for the type of problems Beuke alleges could occur."

In its answer to Beuke's motion, the Attorney General's Office noted that Beuke had been taking the case-in-point anti-seizure medication in for a long time, yet his attorneys chose not to raise the issue until a week before his date of execution.