Ohio to resume executions in January after three-year pause

(Reuters) - The state of Ohio plans to resume the execution of condemned inmates in January, ending a three-year pause in carrying out death sentences, under a new lethal-injection protocol designed to meet U.S. Supreme Court approval, prison officials said on Monday. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said it would proceed in January with the scheduled execution of Ronald Phillips, convicted and sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl. He would be the first Ohio inmate put to death since January 2014. Ohio, one of 31 U.S. states with capital punishment, instituted a death penalty moratorium in 2015 due to difficulty in obtaining the drugs needed to perform lethal injections. The correction department said it has presented a federal judge with a revised execution protocol that includes a three-drug combination specifically upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last year as permissible for executions. The department said a similar drug combination - consisting of midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride - was used by Ohio from 1999 to 2009. (Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Matthew Lewis)