The Associated Press

Three more Ohio inmates are scheduled to be executed in the next five weeks. If the executions are carried out, the six injection deaths in 2003 would outnumber all of those in the previous four years.

The faster pace is due to more death penalty cases finishing their lengthy appeals processes, the Ohio attorney general's office has said. The state Supreme Court sets execution dates.

Ernest Martin, 42, on Wednesday became the eighth inmate executed since the state resumed using the death penalty in 1999. He had been the third inmate sentenced to die in 1983 after the Legislature reinstated the option.

Upcoming executions scheduled:

• Lewis Williams, 44, on Tuesday. He was convicted of murdering Leoma Chmielewski, 76, in her Cleveland home in 1983.

He has been ordered to attend a hearing Monday in Cleveland to determine whether he is mentally retarded and whether he should be allowed to fire his court-appointed attorneys and dismiss his mental retardation claim.

• Jerome Campbell, 42, on June 27. He was convicted of stabbing John Henry Turner, 78, to death in his Cincinnati apartment in 1988. Campbell is the first inmate for whom the parole board has recommended that Taft change the sentence to life without parole.

• Richard Cooey, 36, on July 24. He was convicted of killing two University of Akron students, Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery, in 1986. They had been raped and beaten. His clemency hearing is set for July 8.

Executions since 1999 were:

• Wilford Berry, Feb. 19, 1999, for the 1989 murder of Cleveland baker Charles Mitroff Jr.

• Jay D. Scott, June 14, 2001, for the 1983 murder of Cleveland delicatessen owner Vinney Prince.

• John Byrd, Feb. 19, 2002, for the 1983 murder of Monte Tewksbury of suburban Cincinnati.

• Alton Coleman, April 26, 2002, for the 1984 murder of Marlene Walters of suburban Cincinnati.

• Robert Buell, Sept. 25, 2002, for the 1982 murder of 11-year-old Krista Harrison of Marshallville.

• Richard Fox, Feb. 12, 2003, for the 1989 murder of Leslie Keckler of Bowling Green.

• David Brewer, April 29, 2003, for the 1985 murder of Sherry Byrne of Springdale.

• Ernest Martin, June 18, 2003, for the 1983 murder of Robert Robinson in his Cleveland store.