New bill proposes using nitrogen hypoxia to carry out capital punishment in Ohio

COLUMBUS — A Miami Valley lawmaker has a plan to restart the way Ohio executes death penalty inmates.

Miami Valley State Representative Phil Plummer is one of two state representatives sponsoring the new legislative plan that would allow a new method for capital punishment.

Plummer and Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) are pushing to allow the state to use nitrogen hypoxia as a method to kill death row inmates.

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The state of Alabama just executed a convicted killed with this method. He breathed in nitrogen through a face mask, depriving him of oxygen and suffocating him.

The method had never been used in an execution or tested before the Alabama inmate’s death.

News Center 7 spoke to Allison Cohen, who serves as the executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions. She said the group, which is the only statewide group solely dedicated to repealing the death penalty in Ohio, doesn’t support the bill.

“What would happen if we used all that time and all those resources to finding a nitrogen hypoxia execution toward community safety, preventing crime in the first place, or resources for the families of victims,” Cohen said.

The state hasn’t carried out an execution since 2018 because the state cannot get drugs from pharmaceutical companies to carry out its lethal injection program. Plummer’s bill would give Ohio the second option if it becomes law.

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“Juries have convicted these people and sentenced them to death. We need some closure for the victims in cases like these,” Plummer said on Tuesday.

Plummer’s bill also has the support of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“Saying that the law of Ohio can be thwarted, or be able to be thwarted because pharmaceutical companies don’t want to sell the chemicals is an abdication of the sovereignty of the State of Ohio, which still has this law on its books,” Yost said.

While this bill was just introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives, there are also two more bipartisan bills currently in committee in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate that would abolish the death penalty in Ohio.

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