Extreme pressure for prosecutors in death penalty cases
By Kate York, kyork@mariettatimes.comArticle Photos
Fact Box
1800s
Capital punishment has been a part of Ohio's justice system since early in the state's history. From 1803, when Ohio became a state, until 1885, executions were carried out by public hanging in the county where the crime was committed. In 1885, the Legislature enacted a law that required executions to be carried out at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus.
In 1897, the electric chair, considered to be a more technologically advanced and humane form of execution, replaced the gallows.
1972
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional. But with that holding, the court essentially opened the door to states to rewrite their death penalty statutes to eliminate the problems cited by the ruling. Advocates of capital punishment began proposing new statutes that they believed would end arbitrariness in capital sentencing. The decision reduced the death sentences of 65 Ohio inmates to life in prison. Also in 1972, Death Row was moved to the newly opened Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville.
1981
On Oct. 19, 1981, Ohio lawmakers enacted the state's current capital punishment statute. Still, it was not until 1999 that the state executed another inmate due to the appeals process.
1993
In 1993, a bill granting prisoners the option to choose between death by electrocution or lethal injection was passed and signed into law by former Gov. George V. Voinovich. The Death Row inmate would be asked to choose between the two methods seven days before the scheduled execution. The law stipulated that if the prisoner did not choose, the default method of execution would be death by electrocution.
1995
In 1995, Death Row was relocated to the Mansfield Correctional Institution. The "Death House" remains at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. All executions, whether male or female, take place at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
1991
On Feb. 19, 1999, inmate Wilford Berry, "The Volunteer", became the first inmate to be executed in Ohio since 1963. He voluntarily waived all of his appeals and selected lethal injection as the method of execution. To date, there have been eight inmate "volunteers" executed in Ohio. Berry was serving a death sentence out of Cuyahoga County for the 1989 murder of Charles Mitroff.
2001
On Nov. 15, 2001, Governor Bob Taft signed House Bill 362 eliminating the electric chair as a form of execution. The only method of execution in Ohio is lethal injection.
2003
On June 26, 2003, inmate Donna Roberts became the first female on Ohio's death row since 1991 when then-Gov. Richard Celeste commuted the sentences of four women on Death Row to life in prison.
2009
On Sept. 15, 2009, attempts to administer lethal injection to Romell Broom failed after prison medical technicians were unable to find usable veins. Broom's execution team struggled unsuccessfully for two hours to insert intravenous shunts into his arms to administer the lethal cocktail of three drugs, prompting Gov. Ted Strickland to take the unprecedented step of stopping an execution.
On Nov. 13, 2009, lawmakers announced Ohio will become the first state in the nation to switch to a one-drug method of execution, essentially administering a massive barbiturate overdose. The state also indicated it will employ a back-up of injecting drugs directly into a muscle when prison medical technicians are unable find usable veins.
Source: drc.ohio.gov and Times research.
For county prosecutors, death penalty cases can mean more time, more effort and more cost to the county that any other cases they may try.
"It's the most extreme kind of criminal case you can have," said Michael Spahr, who served as Washington County prosecutor for 24 years and tried one capital murder case during that time. "Anytime you're asking a jury to consider taking someone's life, there's a lot more pressure and maybe a lot more time. With any case you have to make sure it's solid, but with these you have to make sure everything is really solid because the jury will be even more careful in their considerations."
Spahr was the prosecuting attorney for Washington County's last death penalty case, the 1984 trial of Larry Lee, who killed his estranged wife and her friend at the Colonial Terrace Apartments in Marietta. Lee was ultimately found guilty of both murders but had separate convictions due to a hung jury on one count, which made him ineligible for the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison.
There are some unique challenges to a death penalty case that begin with the jury selection, said Spahr.
In the Lee case, selection of jurors took two weeks, with 10,000 pages of questions and answers by the conclusion.
"It became almost like a chess game," said Spahr. "You want to try to find out if they support the death penalty without directly asking them. You try to find out some things about them and their beliefs, and if I thought they weren't open to the death penalty, I would try to get them excused, but then the defense attorney would try really hard to keep them."
Attorneys would also have to prepare for a penalty phase of the case in addition to the trial. In 1984, if that phase would have been necessary in the Lee case, there was to have been a month between the phases, and jurors would have had to be sequestered in a hotel for the entire time.
"That would have cost us $250,000, which was a large sum in 1984," said Spahr.
Now, penalty phases start within a few days of the conclusion of a trial.
"Attorneys will have to prepare for that at the same time as they prepare for the case, although they may have a team helping," said Spahr.
It's the prosecutor's choice whether to ask for the death penalty if it's an aggravated murder case, meaning there was prior calculation and the crime meets a list of other circumstances.
In small counties, there are some prosecutors who won't take death penalty cases because they feel they don't have the resources to prepare, said Spahr, but Washington County is fortunate not to be in that situation.
"We're not like the big counties who do six of these a year - we're different because we don't have many murders, let alone murders that qualify as possible death penalty cases," he said. "But I always felt that if the facts supported it, you should go for it. In the Lee case, it was a horrible crime. Anyone who saw the photos of (Mrs.) Lee laying there with her face shot off would have wanted the death penalty."
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madashell
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11-23-09 12:27 PM
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i would like to know why this monster is walking down there stairs in the court room with no handcuffs after he has killed 2 people. My dad was one of his victims,,and i think it has cost tax payer more money to keep him layed up in a bed,, than it would of been to kill him!!!!!!! someone explain that!!!!!!!!
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rikrab
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11-22-09 6:28 PM
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...and make sure they are housed with the pedophiles.
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bulldog
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11-21-09 11:31 PM
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Put them in a open dorm and give them knives and let them do what they do best. Saves money and frees up bed space pretty quick.
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Darby1952
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11-21-09 10:17 PM
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nice
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rikrab
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11-21-09 7:03 PM
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Defray cost by putting executions on pay for view.
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