Federal judge orders delay in man's execution

COLUMBUS (AP) -- A judge Monday postponed the execution of a man who is part of a death row lawsuit that claims Ohio's method of execution by injection is cruel and unusual.
The Ohio Supreme Court had scheduled Jeffrey Hill's execution for June 15. U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost ordered it delayed until further notice.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year refused to grant a stay for a similar argument by John Hicks, who was executed in November. The Ohio Supreme Court also rejected Hill's request for a delay.
Attorney General Jim Petro's office will not appeal the decision until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves a related case, Petro spokeswoman Kim Norris said.
Hill was sentenced for the stabbing death of his partially paralyzed mother, Emma Hill, in 1991 while he was high on crack cocaine. Court records show Hill, then 26, borrowed $20 from his mother March 23, 1991, and bought crack. When he returned to her Cincinnati apartment, the 61-year-old who had suffered a stroke complained he didn't visit enough. He stabbed her 10 times with a kitchen knife, took another $20 and her car, then returned and took $120 he found in her closet.
Relatives of both the condemned man and his victim released a statement pleading for Gov. Bob Taft to commute the sentence to life in prison and "not kill on our behalf."
The lawsuit claims that in deaths by injection, the person executed may continue breathing after a drug is injected to stop it. Breathing is supposed to stop before another drug is injected to stop the heart.