Organ donation delays execution
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio’s governor delayed the execution of a condemned child killer to consider the inmate’s unprecedented organ donation request, expressing hope the man might help save a life before losing his own.
Ronald Phillips, 40, was scheduled to be put to death today with a lethal injection of a two-drug combination not yet tried in the U.S., but Gov. John Kasich issued a stay of execution Wednesday. The execution date has been reset for July 2.
“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. He wanted to allow time for medical experts to study whether Phillips could donate nonvital organs, such as a kidney, before being executed.
Phillips, who was sentenced for raping and killing a 3-year-old girl in Akron in 1993, asked this week to donate a kidney to his mother and his heart to his sister.
Ohio’s prison medical policy accommodates organ donations, but prison officials rejected the request, saying it came too late to work out logistics and security concerns.
Kasich said Phillips’ crime was heinous but his willingness to donate organs could save another life and the state should try to accommodate that.
Some 3,500 people in Ohio and more than 120,000 nationally are awaiting organ donations, said Marilyn Pongonis, a spokesman for the Lifeline of Ohio organ donation program.
If Phillips is a viable donor for his mother, who has kidney disease and is on dialysis, or for others awaiting live transplants of nonvital organs, the stay would allow time for those procedures to be performed, Kasich said.
Phillips’ sister suffers from a heart ailment and he also wants to donate his heart to her.
