“To Kill, or Not to Kill?” Asketh Ohio

by Chris Cassidy

categories: Death Penalty, Race

Published October 12, 2009 @ 12:59PM PT

Cast of Characters:

Romell Broom, sentenced to death for raping and killing a 14-year-old girl in Cleveland in 1984. Most recently scheduled for execution September 15, 2009.

Lawrence Reynolds, sentenced to death for the 1994 murder and attempted rape of a 67-year-old woman in Cuyahoga Falls. Most recently scheduled for execution October 8, 2009.

Governor Ted Strickland (D), elected for his first term in the governor’s mansion in 2007 after 12 years in the House of Representatives. Strickland’s first term in the House ended with his narrow defeat in the landslide elections of 1994. He re-took the seat in 1996, and maintained it for five more terms. Governor Strickland once put his Ph.D. in counseling psychology to work among the prisoners at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, where Broom is an inmate. Before October, 2009, Governor Strickland had delayed three executions, permitting further review, and commuted two death sentences. Of the three executions in which he did not intervene, two were carried out and another was stayed by The Sixth Circuit. Governor Strickland is up for re-election in 2010.

Attorney General Richard Cordray (D), elected for his first term as AG in last year after serving two years as the states treasurer. Cordray began his legal career clerking at the Supreme Court. He is also an undefeated five-time Jeopardy! champion. With a string of defeats for higher office under his belt, including runs for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, Cordray is generally regarded as having aspirations for higher office. AG Cordray is up for re-election in 2010.

The Sixth Circuit, an esteemed collection of 15 federal judges -- predominantly Republican-appointed white men -- who are the final authority for the vast majority of criminal appeals -- disproportionately from less privileged people of color -- in Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.

Scene: Ohio, a state with a history of sloppy executions. In 2006, the State’s executioners took almost 90 minutes to complete their task at the expense of inmate and former intravenous drug user Joseph Lewis Clark because of problems finding a vein. Once they found a vein, it then collapsed. Before his ultimate execution, Clark repeatedly told State officials, “It don’t work. It don’t work.”

The State also performed the execution of Christopher Newton, a relatively overweight man who had murdered his prison cellmate for a lackluster chess game, with what might be charitably described as questionable proficiency. Newton’s execution also took two hours -- so long that he was permitted a bathroom break -- and included 10 distinct attempts at finding a vein before concluding.

Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Lucasville, Ohio -- Tuesday, September 15:

Today, Romell Broom is scheduled to die. Prison guards awaken Broom just after 5 a.m. Broom eats a bowl of cereal after a brief shower. At 12:30 p.m., Broom is served his “final” meal of creamed chicken, biscuits, green beans, mashed potatoes, salad  and “grape drink.” He is then escorted to the execution chamber.

The executioners enter the chamber at 2 p.m. and begin attempting to insert the IVs intended to deliver Broom’s demise. After over two hours of attempting to access Broom’s veins to deliver the lethal cocktail, the prison director orders executioners to take their second break. At this time, Broom’s attorney is writing the Ohio Supreme Court a letter saying, “When such allegedly skilled professionals have taken this much time without successfully achieving IV access, there comes a point of diminishing returns, and a point when further attempts are cruel and counterproductive. I believe we have reached that point.”

As Broom’s attorney is drafting his plea to the State’s high court, Governor Strickland prepares a Warrant of Reprieve. He files the temporary reprieve as the Ohio Supreme Court is reviewing the failed attempts at Broom’s execution. The executioners never returned to resume their work.

Broom’s case is set for re-hearing before the District Court on November 30.

Cincinnati, Ohio -- Tuesday, October 6:

The Sixth Circuit wakes to a heavy responsibility. This is a day of action, a decisive day in the life of another death row inmate. Lawrence Reynolds awaits The Sixth Circuit’s determination of whether Thursday, October 8 will be his final day on this earth.

It will not. The Sixth Circuit, in a two-to-one decision, temporarily stays Reynolds death sentence, citing the botched execution of Romell Broom.

Perhaps leery of appearing weak on crime just ahead of an election year, AG Cordray immediately begins appealing The Sixth Circuit’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. And without delay, Governor Strickland intervenes once again, granting temporary reprieves in not just Reynolds’ case, but also in the case of another death row inmate, Darryl Durr. The delays are only temporary, pending the November 30 hearing in Broom’s case and a reassessment of execution methods by Ohio officials.

Columbus, Ohio -- Tuesday, November 30:

In this final scene, you can expect all of the characters to have a say. Broom’s case is again before now in the hands of Judge Gregory Frost of the Southern District of Ohio. Judge Frost to answer a pair of questions as to whether the State may execute him: (1) Isn’t it constitutionally impermissible for the State to take a second crack at ending a prisoner’s life? (2) Hasn’t Ohio definitively demonstrated that it is incapable of executing prisoners sans violations of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment? Judge Frost’s answers to this question could not just block Broom’s execution, they have implications for the continuation of the capital punishment across Ohio and beyond.

In the words of The Sixth Circuit’s Judge Boyce Martin, who authored the majority opinion in Reynolds’ case, “Given the constitutional and humanitarian issues at stake in all death penalty cases, these problems in the Ohio lethal-injection protocol are certainly worthy of meaningful consideration.” Indeed.

Epilogue

The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent and has claimed the lives of innocent people. In the United States, death sentences have been applied in patterns that are, at the very least, suggestive of racism. And capital punishment is fiscally irresponsible, costing considerably more than confining dangerous criminals to life imprisonment without parole.

Capital punishment is unjustifiable, unbecoming of a civilized people and should be recognized as unconstitutional.