"Federal judge rejects obese Ohio inmate's claim execution would cause severe pain," is Andrew Welsh-Huggins's AP report. It's via the Zanesville Times Recorder.
A condemned killer trying to delay his execution because of his extreme weight hasn’t raised enough new issues to warrant the legal challenge, a federal judge ruled Monday.Death row inmate Ronald Post, who weighs more than 400 pounds, is asking the courts to stop his January execution on the grounds his weight could cause him to suffer severe pain during the procedure.
Post is prohibited from challenging his execution by injection because he raised similar claims in his first set of federal appeals in 1997, Judge Lesley Wells said Monday in Cleveland.
In general, death row inmates are allowed only one federal appeal when alleging the same set of facts.
Post “has not demonstrated in his new petition that his medical condition has changed so significantly, or that Ohio’s new lethal injection procedures have changed so radically, since he filed his first petition in 1997 that his original core complaints are transformed into something new,” Wells wrote.
However, the judge sent the question to a federal appeals court in Cincinnati for a final determination according to federal law governing this type of appeal. The state is opposing Post’s requests to delay his execution.
Northern Ohio's Morning Journal reports, "U.S. District Judge Lesley Wells in Cleveland rejects inmate Ronald Ray Post's stay of execution because of obesity." It's written by Kaylee Remington.
A federal judge has dismissed Ronald Ray Post’s motion to stop his execution scheduled for Jan. 16..
Post was convicted by a three-judge panel for the 1983 murder and robbery of 53-year-old hotel clerk Helen Vantz at the Slumber Inn in Elyria and was sentenced to death..
Post and his attorneys have argued that because of Post’s obesity, his veins are not suitable for Ohio’s lethal injection procedure.
Earlier coverage of this Ohio lethal injection challenge begins at the link.
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