Ohio executes jailhouse killer

WASHINGTON—Ohio executed Tuesday a man for beating a fellow inmate to death over changing a television channel, prison officials said.

Clarence Carter, 49, was the second inmate to be killed in Ohio using the surgical sedative pentobarbital alone rather than the usual concoction of lethal drugs due to a shortage in the United States. The sedative is usually used to euthanize animals.

The time of death was announced as 10:25 am (1425 GMT) at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

“His was the second execution in Ohio using five grams of pentobarbital as a stand-alone drug,” noted Ohio prisons spokesman Carlo LoParo.

Carter had been sentenced to death in 1989 after beating Johnny Allen Jr., 33, who died two weeks after the December 1988 confrontation over one of them changing the TV channel.

At the time of the beating, Carter was awaiting sentencing over the murder of a drug dealer.

Ohio and Oklahoma are the first US states to use large doses of pentobarbital to put death row inmates to death.

Carter’s death marked the 12th execution in the United States so far this year.