From The Columbus Dispatch A law hiding the source of drugs used in Ohio executions could trigger wide-ranging unintended consequences, including disruptions in health care and violations of federal interstate-commerce law, opponents charged yesterday.
Few critics expressed opposition to capital punishment, which is legal in Ohio and resumed in 1999.
Instead, Public Defender Tim Young warned that House Bill 663 “is likely to cause long-term, far-reaching consequences.”
The bill “sacrifices so much of what we all know about good government: openness, transparency, accountability, oversight and limits on governmental intrusion into contracts, private businesses and the medical profession,” Young testified at a hearing of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
In other states where similar laws shielding the source of lethal drugs were enacted, extensive litigation resulted.