Thursday, August 20, 2009

** Ohio medics legally able to function as executioners

** Ohio medic sentenced to jail for ransacking ex-girlfriend’s home

UNITED STATES NEWS

** Ohio EMTs can continue to work as executioners in death penalty cases. The Dayton Daily News (AP/August 19) said that is the legal opinion offered by Ohio Department of Public Safety lawyer Heather Frient. Frient gave her take on the matter at the behest of the State EMS Board which took exception to 2 execution team members being EMTs. According to Frient’s write-up, EMTs administering lethal injection IVs are not performing a medical procedure. Without medical oversight, the state is not able to legally prevent medics from volunteering to participate in the euthanizations.

** A Toledo, Ohio paramedic/firefighter will be cooling his heels in jail for one month, after being convicted of ransacking his ex-girlfriend’s home. The Toledo Blade (Erica Blake/August 19) said Melvin Bond, Sr., who has more than three decades on the job, will also face three years of probation and must take both anger management and domestic violence courses. According to the newspaper, Bond, 48, broke into and trashed the house January 29, causing some $20,000 damage. Angered by his former girlfriend seeing another man, he wrote vulgarities on the walls, at the same time as damaging a water heater, sink, and a couple of closets. Bond’s son Melvin, 24, was also convicted of removing evidence pertinent to his father’s criminal case. The elder Bond resigned from his job last month.