Chicago — The US state of Ohio planned to execute its first prisoner in more than three years on Wednesday, putting to death a man convicted of raping and murdering a child. Ronald Phillips faces execution by lethal injection at 10am local time (2pm GMT), ending Ohio’s moratorium on the death penalty, as officials searched for a new combination of drugs to put inmates to death. States have struggled to find adequate supplies of drugs, as pharmaceutical companies have restricted the use of their products amid waning support among the American public for the death penalty. Court challenges have ensued as states have tried new drug cocktails. A federal appeals court ruling last month endorsed a new drug combination to be used in Ohio, reinstating executions in the Midwestern state and paving the way for Phillips’s death sentence to be carried out. Phillips was 19 in 1993 when he was convicted of raping and killing three-year-old Sheila Marie Evans, his then-girlfriend’s daughter. He ad...
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