Monday, February 15, 1999
Execution could speed others
Volunteer's death might lead to quicker resolutions in Ohio
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Wilford Lee Berry
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Ohioans shouldn't look for a rapid series of executions if Wilford Lee Berry Jr. dies as scheduled Friday night. But prisoners' worst fears probably will be realized.
Mr. Berry's volunteering to die should make it easier for Ohio to gradually accelerate the killing of other death row inmates.
Since resuming executions in 1981, Indiana has killed five more men and a similar path to the death chamber would develop in Ohio, predicted Christo Lassiter, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.
“The first domino is the key,” Mr. Lassiter said, based on research into the death penalty and U.S. Supreme Court decisions in capital cases since 1970.
“You saw it in the South, in Texas, Georgia and Florida. Same in Indiana.
“By hook or by crook in Ohio, we have found a way to take it off track. But once a path is found, psychologically, the criminal justice system sees a way it has finished and reached an end point.”
A handful of other Ohio capital cases, including that of John Byrd of Hamilton County, are nearing the end of their appeals. The question is: will this speed their completion?
Mr. Berry's execution would not affect Mr. Byrd's case directly, said Mark Weaver, deputy attorney general, “but people in Ohio might think it (the death penalty) finally means something if it is implemented.”
The execution would be Ohio's first since 1963.
If Mr. Berry is granted his wish to die for a 1989 murder, Ohio would be the 10th state in which the first person executed since 1976 was a volunteer. Others include Gary Gilmore in Utah (1977) and Steven Judy in Indiana (1981).
Greg Meyers is chief of the Ohio Public Defender's capital punishment division, which is fighting Mr. Berry's execution.
His staff has been accused of pursuing hopeless appeals to delay executions, but Mr. Meyers responded, “We are, as defense lawyers, obligated to zealously represent every client who has a non-frivolous legal issue and an available legal remedy.”
That is true even when someone such as Mr. Berry — whom all sides agree has mental problems — prefers to die rather than live in prison.
Mr. Meyers suggested the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati —
which is considering still another appeal on behalf of Mr. Berry — is a more appropriate target for those who fret about delays.
“If (attorney general) Betty Montgomery wants to cry foul on the pace of these cases, she ought to be yelling at the 6th Circuit,” Mr. Meyers said.
It's no secret that Ms. Montgomery's staff is frustrated by cases that have languished for years in state and federal judges' hands without a decision.
“It's real important that death-row inmates have their cases reviewed,” said Mr. Weaver, the deputy attorney general, “but are two-year waits necessary?”
If Mr. Berry is executed, the Catholic Conference of Ohio plans to press legislators to eliminate Ohio's death penalty.
The conference, directed by Ohio's six Roman Catholic bishops, contends Mr. Berry is mentally ill and isn't competent to make a life-or-death decision.
“Executing a mentally ill convict creates a strong case for repeal,” Columbus lawyer David J. Young said. He represents the Catholic Conference and has filed three clemency requests for Mr. Berry on its behalf to the Ohio Parole Board.
Mr. Byrd, of Northside, and David Mapes, of Cuyahoga County, appear to be the next two Ohioans in line for execution based on where the progress of their appeals.
Both cases are in the 6th Circuit. Mr. Mapes' oral argument was Jan. 27, 1998, and Mr. Byrd's oral argument was March 11.
Decisions, whenever they are handed down, will not end it, since the loser can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I'd like to say you'd see a series of executions of people on death row after Mr. Berry's execution,” Mike Allen, Hamilton County prosecutor, said. “Even if he goes, we're two or three years away from seeing another execution carried out, unfortunately. Mr. Berry's case is special because he waived his appeals. Our case (Mr. Byrd) hasn't even gone to the (U.S.) Supreme Court yet.”
Hamilton County juries and judges have placed the most people, 45, on Ohio's 191-man death row.
Mr. Mapes, now 44, was sen tenced for shooting a Cleveland bar owner to death on Jan. 30, 1983. As of today, he has been on death row for more than 151/2 years. That's 5,725 days, second most of the 191 awaiting execution.
Mr. Byrd, 35, was sentenced to death on Aug. 30, 1983, for stabbing and killing Monte Tewksbury, a Colerain Township convenience store clerk, during an April 17, 1983, robbery.
Mr. Byrd, who's also been on death row for more than 15 years, was to die in Ohio's electric chair shortly after midnight on March 15, 1994, but the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision to block the execution at 11:30 p.m. on March 14.
The last person executed in Ohio, Donald Reinbolt of Columbus, died in the electric chair March 15, 1963 — 31 years to the day when Mr. Byrd was to die.
A Hamilton County man, David Steffen, 39, has been there longest, almost 16 years. His 5,745 days on death row are 20 more than Mr. Mapes'.
Mr. Steffen was sentenced for raping and killing Karen Range, 19, in her family's Roselawn home on Aug. 19, 1982. He was selling door-to-door and she let him in to demonstrate a cleaning product.
He broke her nose and slashed her throat four times, leaving her to bleed to death. Ms. Range's mother found her nude body.
Mr. Steffen's case has yet to reach the 6th Circuit.
William Bradley, 72, originally of Cuyahoga County, is the oldest man on Ohio's death row.
On Feb. 2, 1984, while he was serving time at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Mr. Bradley killed a 62-year-old civilian supervisor in the prison's sheet metal shop. Mr. Bradley, who had a previous murder conviction, used a 10-gauge bar of sheet metal to beat the supervisor to death.
Mr. Bradley has exhausted his appeals in state court and is just beginning his federal appeals. That could take years.
Reporter Michael Hawthorne contributed.
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