Ohio lethal injection opponent gets life in prison
ELYRIA, Ohio (AP) — A man who challenged Ohio’s earlier lethal-injection method has been spared the death penalty because of a separate decision by the judge who had ruled on that challenge.
Thirty-year-old Ronald McCloud Jr. was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole for the 2005 rape and murder of a woman in a church restroom in Lorain.
Two judges on the three-judge panel favored the death penalty for McCloud, but Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge disagreed, blocking a death sentence.
Judge Burge had ruled in a lethal-injection challenge by McCloud and a separate homicide suspect, saying Ohio should stop using a three-drug combination for executions and focus on a single drug. The state moved to a one-drug protocol in 2009 in response to several challenges.