AP has an updated post, "U.S. Supreme Court won't permit Ohio execution." It's by legal affairs writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins, via the Zanesville Times Recorder.
The status of a dozen Ohio executions scheduled during the next two years was uncertain following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Wednesday to allow a temporary delay in capital punishment to stay in place.
The state now finds itself in the position of having a death penalty system that remains constitutional in the eyes of the courts but being unable to put inmates to death because of issues with how that system is conducted.
Attorney General Mike DeWine said a lot can happen between now and the next scheduled execution in April.
"I would not predict that this means the end of the death penalty in Ohio," DeWine said. "Nor would I venture to guess frankly what kind of delay this means."
The U.S. Supreme Court without comment refused to allow the state to proceed with the execution of Charles Lorraine, the condemned killer of an elderly couple in 1986. The execution has been delayed by federal courts over concerns that the state continues to deviate too often from its written rules for lethal injection.
Federal courts must monitor every Ohio execution "because the State cannot be trusted to fulfill its otherwise lawful duty to execute inmates sentenced to death," the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January.
The court upheld an earlier decision by U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost that chided Ohio for not following his warnings to adhere strictly to their policies.
"U.S. Supreme Court's decision brings execution of prisoners in Ohio to halt," is the Cleveland Plain Dealer report filed by Reginald Fields.
Until Ohio revises its lethal injection procedures to the satisfaction of a federal judge on the case, no more inmates will be executed, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine acknowledged.
"I can't predict what is going to happen," said DeWine, whose office represents Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. "The next scheduled execution is for April, and so that's a little ways off, and we'll just see what happens between now and then."
Kasich and DRC had appealed two federal court rulings that had blocked the scheduled Jan. 18 execution of a Trumbull County double murderer. But the Supreme Court, without explanation, declined to hear the case, letting the lower court rulings stand.
That means the stay of execution granted to Charles Lorraine by a district judge and upheld by a federal appeals panel will remain in place. Lorraine is one of about a dozen death row inmates suing the state, claiming Ohio's lethal injection procedures are unconstitutional.
And:
The court rulings to this point involve only Lorraine's request to stave off execution and not on whether Ohio's execution process passes constitutional muster.
"The evidence we've presented makes it substantially likely that Lorraine would win at trial," said the inmate's attorney Allen Bohnert, a federal assistant public defender. "So as a result of that and some other factors, fairness says he should be able to participate in that trial which would be impossible, obviously, if he had been executed on Jan. 18."
Bohnert said that Kasich should make a moratorium on executions official in view of the ruling.
The original order was issued by U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost of the Southern District of Ohio. Frost has handled several cases questioning Ohio's death penalty procedures in recent years and ordered changes. He didn't hide his frustration with the state for how it has handled this issue.
"Ohio has been in a dubious cycle of defending often indefensible conduct, subsequently reforming its protocol when called on that conduct, and then failing to follow through on its own reforms," Frost wrote in his scathing Jan. 11, 2012 ruling in favor of Lorraine.
The Plain Dealer also posts the lengthy examination, "Should Ohio consider putting a permanent hold on the death penalty? A Closer Look." It's by Cliff Pinckard. It's a must-read recap for those following the swirl of Ohio capital punishment issues.
So arguments over procedural matters have bought Lorraine and others on death row some time. But DeWine and his office will work to resume executions as soon as possible.
But should he?Currently there are 34 states that practice capital punishment. Texas leads the nation in executions since the federal government reinstated capital punishment in 1976 with 478, including one this year. Ohio has executed 46 prisoners, all since 1999. There are 155 inmates currently on death row in Ohio. But there also have been 140 death row exonerations since 1973. That includes Joe D'Ambrosio of North Royalton, who was freed in March 2010 after spending more than 20 years on death row on a murder conviction.
Earlier coverage from Ohio begins at the link.Questions about the death penalty have some people wondering if Ohio needs to abandon the practice, including Ohio Supreme Court Senior Justice Paul Pfiefer. Pfiefer helped write Ohio's death penalty statute in 1981, but he argues it's not being applied as originally intended (Cleveland.com):
Murder is a vile crime. But not all murders are the same, and we did not mean for all -- or even most -- murderers to be eligible for the death penalty. The law was meant to be employed only when a certain set of aggravating circumstances warranted execution. But over the years, the death penalty has come to be applied more pervasively than we ever intended.
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