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OHIO (USA): GOVERNOR DELAYS RONALD PHILLIPS' EXECUTION
November 13, 2013: Ohio's governor has delayed Ronald Phillips' execution to study the feasibility of allowing the man to donate his organs. Republican Gov. John Kasich has rescheduled Phillips' lethal injection to July 2, 2014. Phillips, 40, White, was sentenced to die for raping and killing his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter in 1993, and his execution was scheduled for Nov. 14.
He asked Monday to be allowed to donate his organs to sick relatives or a member of the public, but state correction officials quickly turned him down, saying it was logistically impossible. Now Gov. John Kasich says he wants to explore the feasibility of organ donation by Phillips and other condemned prisoners.
"I realize this is a bit of uncharted territory for Ohio, but if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues then we should allow for that to happen," Kasich said in a statement. A prisons spokeswoman said Phillips will be returned to death row to await the assessment's findings.
Phillips made his request two days ago, after he'd been denied mercy and his other legal options were exhausted. He says it wasn't a delay tactic but an attempt to do good. As a matter of fact, the use of lethal injection "poisons", to varying degrees, all the organs of the offender, and then the execution procedure currently in force does not seem easily compatible with the donation of organs or tissues.
A few years ago it was found that in China the people executed were explanted organs, but the execution was done with a shot of a firearm in the neck. It seems to protect the organs, would be used a small-caliber pistol, and then the explant procedure was carried out on "patients" seriously injured but not dead. (Source: Associated Press, Hands off Cain, 13/11/2013)
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