COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Nine condemned Ohio inmates are once again asking a federal judge to find the state's rules for carrying out executions unconstitutional.
Attorneys for the death row prisoners say the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction continues to use an arbitrary process with undertrained executioners and potentially cruel and unusual injection methods.
The prisoners argued in a 102-page court filing Wednesday that the process still gives the state too much discretion to abandon its rules at the last-minute during an execution.
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost halted an execution in July after agreeing that the process is haphazard. He has yet to rule on the state's updated procedures meant to address his concerns.
Gov. John Kasich has postponed two executions and granted mercy to a third inmate since Frost's ruling.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
