Ohio execution temporarily blocked

AKRON, Ohio, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A U.S. appeals court panel in Cincinnati Monday temporarily blocked Thursday's scheduled execution of an Ohio deathrow inmate.

Lawrence Reynolds was sentenced to death for the 1994 killing of Loretta Mae Foster, 67, a neighbor in Cuyahoga Falls, a suburb of Akron and Cleveland, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Reynolds had argued in federal and state courts that the state could not ensure he would be subjected to lethal injection without pain, saying that was a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument in 2008. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected Reynolds' appeal last week.

In blocking Reynolds' execution, the appeals court panel cited the case of Romell Broom, the newspaper said. Ohio tried to execute death row inmate Broom last month, but could not find a usable vein for lethal injection. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland intervened and stopped the execution.

In the Reynolds case, the federal appellate panel said the execution should be delayed because of Ohio's ''failure to have a contingency plan in place should peripheral vein access be impossible,'' ''issues related to the competence of the lethal injection team'' and ''other potential deficiencies'' in the execution process, the Beacon Journal reported.

There was no immediate word on whether the state would ask the full U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing.