Ohio Executes Its First Inmate Since 2014, Resumes Lethal Injections With Controversial Drug

LUCASVILLE, OH — Condemned child killer Ronald Phillips died by lethal injection Wednesday morning in Ohio's first execution since 2014. The execution was carried out without complications and was completed at 10:43 a.m., according to reporters at the prison. Phillips, 43, was convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of Sheila Marie Evans, his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter.

Phillips was put to death at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a last-ditch appeal by Phillips and other death row inmates, who challenged Ohio’s three-drug execution method.

Phillips won the first of several reprieves in 2013 when he was initially scheduled to die because Ohio officials weren’t able to obtain pentobarbital, one of the drugs used in executions. The European Union had banned manufacturers from selling the drug to U.S. states.

Ohio’s last execution in 2014 was controversial. Dennis McGuire, who had been sentenced to death for raping and murdering a pregnant woman, gasped, heaved and took 25 minutes to die, according to witnesses.

The Supreme Court didn’t explain its reason for rejecting Phillips' appeal, but Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a dissenting opinion that Phillips had the right to question the execution method.

Among the criticisms of midazolam is that it doesn’t mask the pain of the other two drugs in the cocktail.

NBC said Phillips asked for a last meal of a large pizza with peppers and mushrooms, two liters of Pepsi, strawberry cheesecake, grape juice and a piece of unleavened bread.

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Feature photo: This November 2005 file photo shows a curtain that is pulled between the death chamber and witness room at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio, where condemned child killer Ronald Phillips is scheduled to die Wednesday, July 26. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)