LUCASVILLE, Ohio, May 24, 2007
Bizarre Execution In Ohio
Killer Laughed And Joked As Executioners Struggled To Find A Vein For Lethal Injection
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Photo
In this undated photo released by Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Christopher J. Newton is shown. Newton was executed on Thursday, May 24, 2007 for killing another inmate. (AP/Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation)
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Christopher Newton, 37, died at 11:53 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correction Facility, about two hours after the scheduled start of his execution for killing the cellmate after arguing over a chess game.
Newton weighed 265 pounds, according to a physical Wednesday, and prison medical staff struggled to find veins on each arm. The execution team stuck him at least 10 times with needles to get in place the shunts where the needles are injected.
He continued to talk, smile and laugh with the prison staff; sometimes his belly would jiggle. At one point, he was given a bathroom break.
When he eventually was moved from his holding cell and strapped to a table in the death chamber, he made this short statement: "Yes, boy, I could sure go for some beef stew and a chicken bone. That's it."
In a written statement read by public defender Robert Lowe after the execution, Newton apologized to his victim's family. "If I could take it back, I would," the statement said. "To my family, I love you and I'm sorry."
The next-longest delay of an Ohio execution was last May when Joseph Clark died 90 minutes after his scheduled execution time. Prison staff had problems tapping a vein in the longtime-intravenous drug user's arm. Executions typically take about 20 minutes.
A group of Ohio inmates is suing over the state's injection method, saying it is unconstitutionally cruel. Problems with injections have caused delays in other states, including one in Florida in December when an inmate needed a second dose of deadly chemicals, which prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to suspend all executions in the state as a commission examines its lethal injection process.
Newton, who spent much of his adult life in prison, knew killing cellmate Jason Brewer in 2001 was a capital crime and refused to cooperate with investigators unless they sought the death penalty against him, court documents said.
Newton himself even claimed in an interview last month that he had intentionally gotten himself put back in prison by leaving behind a handprint during a 1999 break-in at his father's house.
"He's certainly the epitome of a volunteer," said Leo Jennings, a spokesman for Attorney General Marc Dann.
After the problems with the Clark execution, Ohio announced in June 2006 it would change its lethal injection process to try to prevent such problems in the future.
At the time, prisons director Terry Collins said execution teams would make every effort to find two injection sites and will use a new method to make sure the veins stay open once entryways are inserted.
Newton's delay was exceptionally long and raises new questions about lethal injection, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.
"This adds to the concern that lethal injections are too risky and unpredictable, at least under the present protocols," he said. "It's not the swift and sort of painless death lethal injection was advertised to be."
Although his attorneys argued Newton should be spared the death penalty because he had a variety of mental disorders, a court last fall found him competent to forgo his appeals. The prosecution had argued that he had feigned mental illness.
Gov. Ted Strickland said Monday he agreed with the Ohio Parole Board's recommendation against sparing him. The governor had delayed Newton's execution for a few months when he first took office in January to research the case.
Strickland was closely monitoring the situation Thursday morning, including speaking with Collins by phone.
"There was not a cause to intervene," Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said. "Out of an abundance of caution, every precaution was taken before the procedure began to ensure that there would be no problems when the procedure began."
The ACLU of Ohio called on the state to stop executions because of Thursday's problems.
In the interview with reporters last month, Newton said he killed Brewer, 27, because he repeatedly gave up while they were playing chess.
"He kept giving up. Every time I put him in check, he'd give up and want to start a new game," Newton told reporters in April. "And I tried to tell him you never give up ... I just got tired of it."
He had slammed Brewer's head onto the floor, stomped his throat and cut a piece from his orange prison suit to strangle him — then laughed as officers arrived at the cell.
Prosecutors said Newton picked out Brewer as his victim, asking to be placed in protective custody and transferred to his cell, where the two men lived for 30 days before the murder.
Newton first hit Brewer, and said he then had to kill him because he was afraid to be defenseless when he slept. Brewer, about 100 pounds lighter than Newton, was in prison for attempted burglary in Lucas County in northwest Ohio.
He celebrated for the one-year anniversary of Brewer's death, creating a party hat and party blowers, a prison psychiatrist testified.
Newton's family does not want his remains, prison spokeswoman Andrea Dean said, so the state will cremate him and give the ashes to his spiritual adviser.
Brewer's aunt, Rosemary Carter, told the clemency board that she wanted Newton to die. He is a "dark and evil man and is deserving of the verdict put upon him," Carter wrote in a letter.
Newton was the second inmate executed since Strickland took office in January and the 26th since the state resumed executions.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 78 CommentsBRING BACK THE FIRING SQUAD!
I know how to make you feel better
Don't consider it an execution, instead, just "Visualize" that Chris Newton was a cute little baby, and the only thing Ohio did was perform a late-term abortion.
That should ease your liberal conciousness's.
...
So how about this? Next time there's an abortion, you just visualize a liberal, or an Iraqi, or condemned criminal, or the child of an NRA member who was playing with daddy's surrogate manhood and accidently shot himself? That should ease your conservative conscience (which I assume is the word you were struggling to type there at the end).
Mandatory abortion for one generation starting immediately would solve nearly all the world's problems. Unless your family is particularly long-lived.
Posted by jmbridges2 at 03:57 PM : May 24, 2007
Hey jmbridges,
That eye for an eye is pretty good. Isn't that from the OT. FYI: There was this guy called Jesus who preached a message of love and forgiveness. You seem to have forgotten that . . .
What ever happened to love your fellow man? Turn the other cheek? Blessed are the peacemakers? I guess you only listen to the words of Jesus when it suits your purposes. I have trouble imagining Jesus sticking this fat murderer with a needle and sending him to hell just to save some prison space!
Bring them both back. Or better yet....public executions. Hangings my be a better crime deterent.
Yes, because someone who slams another persons head onto the floor, stomps on their throat and then strangles them deserves a swift, painless death. What a waste of human being...
Checkmate...
For a Christian believer to say they agree with capital punishment proves they are a hypocrite......as this violates the THOU SHALT NOT KILL commandment.
Prisons have become business ventures for states, and the Judicial System has enslaved millions of the lower class via their probation programs where they must make weekly payments......all in this wonderful free country.
Posted by leftcoast196 at 03:55 PM : May 24, 2007
That is not true leftcoast. We execute and impose punishment on those who commit horrible crimes. There is a distinct difference.
It would be difficult to claim this man as "family".
I know how to make you feel better
Don't consider it an execution, instead, just "Visualize" that Chris Newton was a cute little baby, and the only thing Ohio did was perform a late-term abortion.
That should ease your liberal conciousness's.
...
Let's see how many flaws we can find with this logic.
1. Being more tough on criminals will not "restore" the lost morals and values.
2. It's an extremely naive view of the ways things used to be. In the 1950s, there were people being lynched and killed, simply for their color of their skin, not because of any crime they committed. There were laws which made it a crime to have mixed marriages (some of those laws existed into the late 1960s). I am sure they were pedophiles and other horrid crimes back then. It was just that it was easier to keep those secrets hidden.
3. It's also an extremely naive view to not realize the world has greatly changed since back then. International travel was not as frequent as cost compared to one's salary was quite unaffordable. Now, people can cross the oceans for approximately one week's pay. What should we do with progress? Try to prevent it so we can return to our enclosed, protected world?
People like to blame others for problems. Let's quit blaming and let's find solutions to the problems. Of course solutions aren't easy. If they were easy, then we'd all be living in peace and harmony for the last 1000 years.
Posted by mitch0927 at 04:13 PM : May 24, 2007
------------------------------
mitch0927;
I remember reading a story about a man scheduled to be hanged at sunrise. That night, a fellow inmate showed him a tunnel he had recently discovered.
The condemned man entered the tunnel and crawled for a long time and finally, upon seeing light ahead hr experienced a tremendous feeling of relief at his good fortune. He hurriedly exited the tunnel; emerging into the court yard in front of the scaffold where the hangman, and the crowd, were waiting for him.
Would that be considered cruel and unusual punishment?
I think mitch0927 is on to something, but to bad nobody thinks of the burdens the taxpayers endure to keep these pieces of s_hit alive and well fed.
Undoubtedly the son of good Republishit Party operatives - home skooled just like his Cracker Daddy !
Posted by smb221
Read the post again, you idiot! Who is it to? Not you, since you say you are not upset by the execution. You are way beyond stupid.
To all liberals upset by the execution of Christopher Newton.
I know how to make you feel better
Don't consider it an execution, instead, just "Visualize" that Chris Newton was a cute little baby, and the only thing Ohio did was perform a late-term abortion.
That should ease your liberal conciousness's.
...
Posted by processor2
Posted by jimkun at 05:59 PM : May 24, 2007
I think Ohio found a solution for this problem.
Many parents in the West used the public hangings as a ,"see, look what happens to criminals."
Their victims went through unbearable pain and suffering. I beleive the criminal should have to endure the same fate as he allowed his victim.
So!!!!!!!! Don't expect my sympathy because they died to slow.
Given a lifespan of 70 years US citizens have +1% chance of dying by murder.
Seems ridiculously liberal gun laws, the death sentence and monstrous prison sentences have the opposite effect of the intended.
I'd hate to think there were other causes?
You really have to ask yourself, "do I feel lucky today?"
Posted by JackSteen1 at 07:15 PM : May 24, 2007
You know Jackie, some parents want to home-school their children so they are not force-fed the liberal doctrines that seem to be so prevalent in our nations schools.
Home-schooling is a good way to ensure that the child is getting a top-rate education. Many schools teach only what the state has approved, usually whatever they have decidced the child must know in order to pass some standardized test(many states use these).
In reading some of the schoolbooks that are issued today, I see many inconsistancies(sp) with what they say happened and what really happened.
1 Shot to the head with a bullet the victim's family provided for free!
Posted by patriot75 at 07:52 PM : May 24, 2007
Buit a hanging rope can be used many times, a bullet only once.
We are so focused on the poor gentlemen who sit day after day on death row fighting for their lives.
Posted by peacock at 08:06 PM : May 24, 2007
I don't think I would call a murderer or child-rapist...etc a gentleman, more like scum of the earth.
Seems to me they should just get a local veterinarian to do the job right- the FIRST time.
Posted by newster1 at 08:34 PM : May 24, 2007"
LOL
You are incorrigible. LOL
Posted by newster1 at 08:34 PM : May 24, 2007"
LOL
You are incorrigible. LOL
I agree, "take a life, give a life". Punishment for murder should be suicide. That way the criminal actually gives his life for his crime. That way people can't call the death penalty "murder" and they can't criticize doctors or prison staff.
As for humane punishment. Perhaps the law is as much for the executioner and the inmate. The arguement of killing the inmate in the way he/she killed is nice to say, but who really could do that? I would think that administering a lethal injection would be easier to do than bashing a man's head on the floor until he is dead.
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