Obese Death Row Inmate Executed

(CBS/AP)  Ohio has executed a 5-foot-7, 267-pound double murderer who argued his obesity made death by lethal injection inhumane.

Richard Cooey died at 10:28 a.m. Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

There were no immediate reports of problems finding suitable veins to deliver the deadly chemicals.

Cooey was condemned to die for killing two college students in 1986.

Cooey had tried to avoid execution by arguing that his obesity would prevent humane lethal injection because viable veins in his arms are hard to find.

A prisons spokeswoman said earlier that Cooey received a pre-execution exam and was cleared.

He spent most of the night sitting on his bed and pacing quietly in his cell, Carson said. He fell asleep at 4:06 a.m., woke at 5:20 a.m. and did not ask for breakfast.

He later met with an attorney and a spiritual adviser.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Cooey's second appeal to stop the execution. It turned down without comment his complaint that the state's protocol for lethal injection could cause an agonizing and painful death. He wanted the state to use a single drug rather than a three-drug combination, and asked for a stay of execution pending a hearing on that motion.

The court on Monday denied a separate appeal based on Cooey's claim that his obesity was a bar to humane lethal injection. The argument also had been rejected by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati and the Ohio Supreme Court, with both courts ruling that he missed a deadline for filing appeals.

Cooey is 75 pounds heavier than when he went to death row - the result of prison food and 23-hour-a-day confinement, his lawyers said.

They also argued that a migraine medicine prescribed by a prison physician could reduce the effect of the anesthetic used as part of the three-drug lethal injection.

They claimed that Ohio has a history of botched executions.

The last Ohio inmate to be executed was Christopher Newton - who was similar in size to Cooey - in May 2007. The execution team had trouble putting IVs in his arm, delaying his execution nearly two hours. There were similar problems in the execution of another inmate in 2006.

Cooey made an earlier trip to the death house. But a U.S. District Court judge intervened hours before his scheduled execution in July 2003 when the Ohio Public Defender's office said it needed more time to assess the case after an appeals court dismissed his previous attorneys for inadequate representation.

Cooey and a co-defendant were convicted in the sexual assaults and slayings of University of Akron students Dawn McCreery, 20, and Wendy Offredo, 21, in September 1986. His co-defendant was 17 and was sentenced to life in prison because of his age.

The Ohio Board of Parole and Gov. Ted Strickland have refused Cooey's plea for clemency.

Cooey dined Monday evening on the special meal he ordered, including T-bone steak with A-1 sauce, onion rings, french fries, four eggs over easy, toast with butter, hash browns, a pint of rocky road ice cream, a Mountain Dew soft drink and bear claw pastries.

He was set to go to his death without any family members present. Relatives visited Cooey last month at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown but chose not to make the trip to the death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Carson said.

[jackp32]

I hope that scum suffered as the juice flowed into his veins.

[barbaram99]

I ''member Gary Gilmore being shot in 77. I was in my 20s. And yep he was shot as he wanted that means. It was 77 and I was asked how I felt about it at time by my friends. I was in Maine at the time. Ye know he wrote his ticket and so did the man at the centre on this board. If THEY are given Death by his/her Peers than it best be carried in a timely manner. I am just a lay person.

[gatofeo]

Death by firing squad is perhaps the most humane method extant. What''s wrong with that?
When Gary Gilmore was executed in 1976, six .30-30 bullets slammed into his heart simultaneously.
He stiffened from the chair he was sitting in, then slumped over. Dead.
He was dead before his body could register pain, owing to the shock of six bullets hitting his heart at once.
He killed in 1986! It took 21 years to bring him to justice!
He should have been executed within 6 months of sentencing.
Twenty-one years of food, clothing, heat, reading, breathing and living. He spent nearly as much time under sentence as his victims lived their lives!
It''s an insult to the families and memories of his victims.
May he roast in Hell.

[stupidrules3]

This is one murderer/rapist that will never do it again.

[barbaram99]

Yer runing Vista? On DSL in using ie ye can make yer page in big print just look at the zoom over the system clock,click on the + in the magifier. MS Anna don''t read the sites. She don''t read much and so.
He sat on his asre in a cell for 22 years while he played the legal system in that state. Today they can know if the fool did the crimes.On yer dime eating better then us. Yep people and he learnt to be harden crook as they do their time. Yep he is dead.

[barbaram99]

Since we are on this subject what should done with them. Who is the blame. really is it the power trip they have over them before they kill. what. HOW ARE WE TO CLEAN THIS MESS UP..Any ideas.. It is the people''s money that pay for housing them. hOW CAN WE STOP IT.

[mrvolleyba11]

he spent 22 years waiting for his punishment to be carried out, 1 year longer than the age of the oldest girl he murdered (21 years old)! ...way too long to sit around and get fat on my dime!!!

[richnj1]

I have qualms about the death penalty, not because I think murderers don''t deserve to die, but because I think it injures the fabric of society to engage in killing. Nonetheless, he murdered two people in 1986. He got to live 22 more years. I don''t feel sorry for him. Whether we''re better off for having executed him versus having him spend the rest of his life in prison is something I''m not sure of. But he got what he deserved.

[barbaram99]

I have been posting on this site for over 2 years and frankly I have a right to my say. His peers gave him death so therefore it was carried out. Frankly thay are cold and should we allow them to have it good in prisom on our dime.I don''t have software that read the net to me. Yer manners hmm. This is not english class and i grad years ago. They used to hang them years ago in America. Now there are more in lock up in America than other nations. Grags,drive by killings,etc.

[questionnews]

Personally I think some who post on here are as pschologically as sick as those they complain about!

I have never seen so many personality disorders!


Posted by canctu1 at 06:22 PM : Oct 14, 2008

It''s hard to take someone critiquing the psychological mentality of others seriously when they can''t even spell the word "psychologically"