COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A federal judge has rejected requests from two condemned Ohio inmates to put a temporary stop to their upcoming executions.
Raymond Tibbetts is scheduled to die Feb. 13. He was convicted of killing his wife, Judith Sue Crawford, and Fred Hicks.
Alva Campbell is scheduled to die Nov. 15 for the death of 18-year-old Charles Dials 20 years ago after Campbell escaped from a court hearing.
Lawyers for both inmates argued the first drug in Ohio’s lethal injection process creates the risk that prisoners being put to death will suffer serious pain.
Federal judge Michael Merz ruled in August that current court decisions have upheld the use of the drug, the sedative midazolam, in executions.
Merz on Thursday cited that same ruling in denying the two inmates’ requests.
