Ohio Prosecutor Joe Deters On ABA's Execution Moratorium: Liberal Hogwash

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters -- whose jurisdiction accounts for 37 of the 184 people on Ohio's death row -- tells the hometown Cincinnati Enquirer that the American Bar Association panel was stacked with liberals. Deters is a Republican and supports capital punishment.

From today's Enquirer:

"This commission is a liberal defense attorney dream team. There is not a single active prosecutor on it. It included a former Ohio Supreme Court justice [Craig Wright] who vowed he'd never vote for the death penalty again, and it goes downhill from there.

"You would think it would have at least one prosecutor, somebody . . . Instead, it's packed with a bunch of liberals. There conclusion should come as no surprise. These are people who don't believe in the death penalty. They know Ohioans support it and can't change the law so they try to subvert the law."

Here's a list of the ABA panel members:

1. Craig Wright, former Ohio justice now Ohio Court of Claims judge.

2. U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Cleveland Democrat and former Cuyahoga County prosecutor.

3. State Sen. Shirley Smith, Democrat, Cleveland.

4. S. Adele Shank, Columbus attorney in private practice and former general counsel Ohio Public Defender's office.

5. U.S. Magistrate Michael Merz, Dayton.

6. Geoffrey S. Mearns, dean, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University.

7. Margery Koosed, University of Akron law professor.

8. Mark Godsey, University of Cincinnati law professor and director of the school's innocence project.

9. Phyllis Crocker, associate dean, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University.

10. David Stebbins, Columbus defense lawyer.

Federal Appeals Court: Ohio's Lethal Injections OK For Now

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- An Ohio death row inmate's claim that lethal injection is a "cruel and unusual punishment" banned by the Constitution was rejected today by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that convicted murderer Richard Wade Cooey II waited too long to file his legal challenge and found the statute of limitations had expired.

The decision by the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals avoided addressing the core issue of Cooey's claim -- the drugs administered when Ohio prisoners are put to death cause intense pain. As part of the procedure, inmates are paralyzed and cannot scream or reveal possible suffering. Ohio uses a combination of three drugs to execute convicts: Sodium thiopental, pancurionium bromide and potassium chloride. The sodium thiopental anesthetizes the prisoner; the pancurionium paralyzes but does not interrupt the ability to feel pain, and the potassium chloride causes cardiac arrest.

Besides attacking the protocol used to cause death, Cooey and another inmate, Adremy Dennis, contended that state prison personnel attending executions and inadequately trained. The appeals court majority said the two-year statute of limitations had expired on Cooey barred him from further challenges. Dennis has already been executed.

Circuit Judge Ronald Lee Gilman dissented from the majority and said he would have considered the appeal. He said Cooey was not challenging his death sentence, but the method of execution. "Ensuring that executions comply with the Constitution of the United States is a paramount duty for the courts, despite the human and financial costs of protracted postconviction litigation," Gilman said.

Ohio made changes to its lethal injection process last year after Joseph Clark's execution was halted on May 2, 2006. His vein collapsed and the drugs could not be administered. Clark was able to speak and told officials the process was not working as he was strapped to a gurney in the death chamber. They stopped, found a new site in his vein, and finished putting him to death.

Today's ruling is HERE. Cooey originally was scheduled for execution on July 24, 2004. It was stayed by the 6th Circuit pending the appeal.

Ohio Death Penalty: Gov. Strickland Has 'Serious Questions'

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Methodist minister and psychologist by training, has told Cincinnati Enquirer Statehouse reporter Jon Craig that he is not entirely comfortable with the death penalty. The governor postponed three executions last week while he looks into the cases, and Craig is preparing a story for the Sunday newspaper that explores Democrat Strickland's views. Strickland granted him an on-the-record interview.

Craig says Strickland told him he has "serious questions" about capital punishment, including concerns about possible racial bias against black defendants. The governor also raised issues about the adequacy of DNA testing, geographic differences across Ohio in how prosecutors treat murder cases, and financial access to skilled defense lawyers.

Those are some of the same issues raised by federal appeals court judge Boyce Martin, who says he no longer believes the death penalty is applied fairly in Ohio or anywhere else in the United States. Martin, an appointee of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, say he won't vote to uphold convictions. Martin's view is described in more detail HERE.

There is a teaser HERE on Cincinnati.com about Strickland's interview.

U.S. Judge Boyce Martin: Abandon The Death Penalty

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Federal appellate Judge Boyce F. Martin's opposition to the death penalty is so vehement he contended in an Ohio case this week it should be completely abandoned. Martin says most court-appointed lawyers defending accused murderers are underpaid and inexperienced. He believes their clients are sentenced to die even when there is a possibility of innocence.

''In our capitalist society, you get what you pay for," Martin said. "We are yet to show a willingness to adequately compensate members of many professions (public school teachers, military and emergency response personnel, social workers, and yes, attorneys for defendants who represent indigent defendants, to name a few) whose competent performance is most important to the functioning of our democracy."

Martin, 71, was appointed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter. He serves on the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and has been increasingly blunt in his criticism of capital punishment. He was pungent in his dissent Tuesday after the court refused habeas corpus for Michael W. Benge, of Hamilton, Ohio. Benge had a crack cocaine habit. He was convicted of killing his live-in girlfriend in 1993. The woman, Judith Gabbard, was dumped in the Miami River. He has been on Ohio's Death Row for nearly 14 years.

Martin postulates Benge may have been sentenced to death simply because his trial was held in Butler County, which may be stricter than others in Ohio. That make the death penalty arbitrary and unfair in his view. Martin said he has become a disciple of the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who believed capital punishment should be abandoned.

"As I have previously stated, 'I know my place in the judiciary, and I recognize that unless and until the Supreme Court deems it necessary to address what I (like Justice Blackmun and others) view as the inherent arbitrariness of the death penalty, my reflections on this topic will only be observations without the force of law. In the meantime, I add my voice to those dissenters who have hoped the Supreme Court 'eventually will concluded that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of death is so plainly doomed that it -- and the death penalty -- must be abandoned altogether.'" (Quoting Blackmun.)

The entire text of the Benge ruling is HERE. Judge Martin's 7-page dissent begins on Page 13.