Sunday, March 1, 1998--

OHIO:

Here is a brief overview of the history of capital punishment in Ohio:

JULY 31, 1885

1st execution at the Ohio Penitentiary by hanging. Valentine Wagner,

56, a man from Morrow County, 2:30 a.m. for the murder of Daniel Shehan

at Mount Gilead. In all, there were 28 convicted murderers hanged at

the Ohio Penitentiary.

APRIL 21, 1897

1st execution at the Ohio Penitentiary by electrocution. William Haas,

17, from Hamilton County, for the murder of Mrs. William Brady.

OCT. 27, 1911

Charles Justice, 42, a Greene County man who helped build the 1st

electric chair, is executed for the murder of John Shoup.

MARCH 15, 1963

Last execution by electrocution at the Ohio Penitentiary, and the last

execution in Ohio. Donald Reinbolt, 29, from Franklin County, for the

murder of Edgar L. Weaver.

A total of 312 men and 3 women put to death in the electric chair at

the Ohio Penitentiary.

JUNE 29, 1972

The death penalty was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme

Court. In Ohio, death sentences for 103 inmates were reduced to life.

JULY 2, 1976

US Supreme Court re-legalizes the death penalty in the country.

1978

In 1974, the Ohio Legislature revised Ohio's death penalty, but it

was again declared unconstitutional. In 1978, death sentences for 110

inmates were reduced to life.

OCT. 19, 1981

Capital punishment was reinstated in Ohio. Leonard Jenkins of Cuyahoga

County, who killed a police officer, was the 1st person sentenced

under the new law. His sentence was later commuted to life by former

Governor Richard Celeste.

1993

Legislature passes a bill granting prisoners the option to choose

death by lethal injection.

FEBRUARY 1995

Death row inmates were transferred from the Southern Ohio Correctional

Facility to the Mansfield Correctional Institution. There are 176

inmates, all male, on death row. The death house and execution chamber

remain at SOCF.

(sources: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and Rick

Halperin)

Only 5 states have more people awaiting execution than Ohio.

But unlike California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina,

Ohio has not implemented the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme

Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

That could change this week.

Convicted murderer Wilford Berry Jr. was scheduled to die by lethal

injection -- a cocktail of sodium pentothal, Pavulon and potassium

chloride at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville at

9 p.m. Tuesday until a federal judge granted a stay Friday. The sentence

still could be carried out if the state attorney general's office wins

its appeal.

Berry is called "The Volunteer" by prosecutors because he asked to die

rather than face life in prison.

State courts have declared him competent to waive his appeals, which

he has done at every opportunity. The Ohio public defender's office

has fought him every time, arguing he is not competent to make that

decision.

Friday, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley said the Ohio Supreme Court

used an improper standard to determine Berry's competence when it ruled

in December that he could end his appeals.

Attorney General Betty Montgomery quickly appealed the ruling to the

6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was expected to rule soon.

But no matter what the appeals court decides, the case likely is headed

to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final say. Gov. George Voinovich also

must decide whether to grant clemency to Berry but has not said when

that will happen.

Berry could become the 1st Ohio prisoner to be executed since Donald L.

Reinbolt died in the electric chair March 15, 1963. Ohio reinstated

the death penalty in 1981.

Berry's death also would send a message: that capital punishment is a

reality in Ohio.

"I think that for 35 years there has been a sense that it's never

going to happen, so there's no need to move these cases along in an

appropriate time frame," Montgomery said.

"Once there's 1 execution, I think that the subconscious sense that it

doesn't exist in Ohio will be removed."

Ohio, which has 176 men and no women on death row, has come close twice

in recent years to executing someone.

John Byrd Jr. was 45 minutes from death in March 1994 when a federal

appeals court stayed his execution, and the U.S. Supreme Court in

January 1996 turned down the state's request to overturn a stay for

child-killer Robert Buell.

Both of those inmates had fought execution.

But Berry, 35, wants to die.

Berry was sentenced to death for the Dec. 1, 1989, robbery and murder

of Cleveland baker Charles Mitroff Jr., who had hired Berry 3 days

before. An accomplice shot Mitroff in the torso. As Mitroff begged

for his life, Berry shot him in the head.

"Chuck's killing was so senseless," Mitroff's brother-in-law Richard

Bowler said last week.

Yet despite the loss, Mitroff's relatives remain ambivalent about

Berry's fate.

"Its inconsequential to me what happens to him as long as he doesn't

get out," Bowler said.

The Ohio public defender's office knows it is working against Berry's

will, arguing that the decision whether Berry should die or live is

best answered by his mother and sister.

"We are fulfilling our ethical obligation to represent a mentally ill

client," Greg Meyers, head of the public defender's death penalty

division, said in a recent news release. He did not return messages

seeking comment.

"No court has ever disputed the fact that Wilford suffers from serious

mental disorders. The legal question remaining is whether Wilford is

competent in the eyes of the federal court to give up his legal battles

and to be executed."

If Ohio implements the death penalty on Berry, people on both sides of

the debate expect other executions to follow.

"Once you do one execution, it certainly becomes much easier the next

one and the next one," said Gary Daniels, a spokesman for the American

Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. "People will find it more acceptable."

Richard C. Dieter, executive director of The Death Penalty Information

Center in Washington, said 1 execution -- particularly of a volunteer --

does not necessarily lead to a string of them.

But as the sentences are carried out, the mood on death row becomes more

hopeless and prisoners sometimes put up less resistance in the appeals

process, he said.

The death penalty appeals process is so unpredictable that Montgomery's

office refused to speculate on which inmate could be next. But Jim

Tobin, a spokesman for Ohioans to Stop Executions, doesn't expect

another execution here this year.

Tobin worries about the precedent of executing Berry.

"The gate that is opened by the execution of Wilford Berry is that the

state finds it very difficult to be merciful,'' Tobin said. "If it can

allow the execution of so disturbed a person, then leniency in cases of

less disturbed people is very unlikely."

Meanwhile, Montgomery says she has a job to do. If Berry dies, it

won't be considered a victory for the state, she said.

"If the execution should occur, nobody wins," she said. "But the

system has carried out its sober duty."

(source: Akron Beacon Journal)

Another wire service guy and I were the only reporters covering the

story.

Executions weren't big news in March 1963. Of course, no one knew it

would be the last one for more than 30 years.

Warden Ernest Maxwell briefed us in his office in the old Ohio

Penitentiary in downtown Columbus. No cameras were allowed, he said.

Taking notes was OK as long as it didn't upset the proceedings.

In fact, a smooth operation was of primary concern, Maxwell explained.

He said if anyone became sick or fainted, it would be ignored until the

execution was over.

The warden said the prisoner, Donald Reinbolt, 29, who killed a Columbus

grocer during a robbery, had been isolated for 72 hours in a holding

cell adjacent to the execution chamber.

Executions were performed in a separate small brick building then.

As our small group walked across the prison yard, silent faces peered

from behind barred windows.

I asked if the lights really dimmed when the switch was pulled. That

only happens in the movies, Maxwell replied. I felt foolish for having

asked the question.

The polished oak chair sat on a pedestal just left of the center of the

rectangular room. Behind it on one side was a door leading to the cell

where Reinbolt waited. On the other, a room where 3 guards manned

switches, not knowing which was the live one.

On the walls was a Rogue's Gallery of the 314 people who had been

electrocuted since the chair was built in the late 1800s.

As antiseptic as prison officials tried to make it, the execution

process was rather primitive. There was no viewing room separated by

glass or any other accommodations for witnesses.

The other reporter and I, deputies from the county where the crime

occurred, a doctor and the warden lined up military style, about 6 feet

away from the chair.

Moments later, Reinbolt was brought in, accompanied by a guard and a

clergyman.

The priest was reciting the Hail Mary; the prisoner was whimpering.

Guards, who obviously had rehearsed this part of it, moved crisply,

strapping Reinbolt into the chair, attaching the electrodes, and

placing a black rubber hood over the prisoner's head.

Reinbolt never said a word.

Maxwell nodded toward the guards by the switches.

There was a deep hum and the prisoner lurched forward in the chair,

straining the straps for a moment before his limp body fell back.

Silence.

Although the man had been shaved where the electrodes were placed,

the smell of singed hair filled the room.

The other reporter swayed, stepped back a few feet, leaned against

the wall and slid to the floor.

No one moved.

The warden nodded again and there was another, longer drone, but this

time, no reaction from Reinbolt.

The doctor stepped forward and placed his stethoscope on Reinbolt's

chest, listening for a heartbeat. He waited a few minutes and tried

again. After repeating the process 1 more time, he declared the man

dead.

Finally it's over, I thought.

The ordeal seemed to have taken forever.

I glanced at my watch as we left the building. 14 minutes had elapsed.

(source: Alvin Orton Jr.,Akron Beacon Journal)