A prisoner on death row in the US has filed a lawsuit claiming he is too fat to be executed and could not die humanely.

Richard Cooey, who is 5ft 7 and weighs about 19 stone, claims that his obesity means it would be difficult to find veins for the lethal injection to be administered, and that medication he has taken for migraines may diminish the effectiveness of drugs the Ohio prison uses in its execution process.

In his second last-minute attempt to avoid execution, Cooey’s lawyers have filed a federal lawsuit in which they claim that he had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and that the problem has been worsened by weight gain.

They said prison officials at the Southern Ohio Correctional Centre in Lucasville have had difficulty drawing blood from him during medical procedures, citing a document filed by a prison nurse in 2003 that said Cooey had sparse veins and that executioners would need extra time.

“When you start the IVs, (intravenous drips) come 15 minutes early,” wrote the nurse who examined Cooey. “I don't have any veins.”

Cooey, 41, was sentenced to die for raping and murdering two University of Akron students in 1986. He had already been taken to the death chamber at the Ohio prison in 2003, but was granted a last-minute stay of execution by a federal judge.

In April, he lost a challenge to Ohio's lethal injection process when the US Supreme Court said he had missed a deadline to file a lawsuit.

If Cooey’s execution goes ahead as scheduled on October 14, he would be the first inmate put to death in Ohio since Christopher Newton was executed last year for killing a prison cellmate over their chess games.

It would also be the first execution in Ohio since the end of an unofficial national moratorium on executions that began last year while the US Supreme Court reviewed Kentucky's lethal injection procedure.

Dr. Mark Heath, a doctor hired by the Ohio Public Defender's Office, said in documents filed with the court that Cooey's weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anaesthetised during his execution.

Cooey’s public defender, Kelly Culshaw Schneider, said that if the first drug doesn’t work, “the execution is going to be excruciating”.

Prison officials and the Ohio Attorney General's Office said they hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment.

Two years ago, convicted killer Jeffrey Lundgren was put to death after a federal appeals court rejected his claim that he was at greater risk of experiencing pain and suffering because he was overweight and diabetic.

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