Monday, February 01, 1999
More on death row want to die
Ohio's Berry part of trend
BY RICHARD WILLING
USA Today
An increasing number of death row inmates are dropping their court appeals and opting to be executed.
Eleven of the 68 prisoners put to death last year said they wanted to die, compared with six in 1997. It was the highest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Six others had executions postponed after lawyers filed last-minute appeals despite the convicts' objections.
Since the annual execution rate increased dramatically four years ago, one in seven of those killed has been an inmate who opted to die. Better than half of the 63 volunteers executed since the death penalty returned in 1977 have died in the past four years.
The phenomenon has helped speed the rate of executions, now running on pace to nearly double last year's total. It also has caused a public relations problem for opponents of the death penalty, and conflicts for defense lawyers who must choose between an obligation to honor a client's wishes and losing him to the executioner.
Ohio's volunteer
Death row inmates cite several reasons for choosing to die. Some tire of the appeals process, which can take 10 years or more. Some loathe the thought of spending life in prison, the usual alternative if an appeal is won. And others say dying is a means of atoning for their sins and gaining a measure of spiritual closure.
Ohio killer Wilford Lee Berry, scheduled to die Feb. 19, wrote to the Ohio Court of Appeals in 1991 and said he opposed a brief his court-appointed lawyer filed to try to stop his execution. He was convicted for robbing and killing his employer, a Cleveland baker. He would be the first convict executed in Ohio since 1963.
Lawyers defend the practice of filing appeals even when they are not wanted.
“If someone came up to you in the street and said he wanted to die, you wouldn't say "You're fine,' would you?” asked Stephen Bright, an Atlanta-based lawyer who specializes in defending capital cases. “You'd realize something was wrong and try to get him some help.”
But death penalty proponents say the unwelcome appeals stretch out the process and cause unnecessary pain to victims' families and to the convicts themselves.
Complicates issue
“There's a glimmer of hope for the world if people who commit heinous crimes can come to some sense of shame and guilt,” said Linda Kelley of Houston, who saw the killer of her son and daughter executed after he opted to die.
Death penalty opponents say the inmates who choose death create an awkward situation.
“We believe it's no less wrong to take a life of someone who wants to volunteer than to take any other life,” said Jim Tobin, a spokesman for Ohioans Against Execution. “(But) it's harder to make that case ... with the public when the person wants to go.”
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