I’m too fat to execute, pleads killer

COLUMBUS: A prisoner who weighs at least 217kg wants his coming execution delayed, saying his weight could lead to a “torturous and lingering death”.

Ronald Post, 53, who shot and killed a hotel clerk in northern Ohio almost 30 years ago, said his weight, vein access, scar tissue and other medical problems raised the likelihood that his executioners would encounter severe problems. Also, he was so big that the execution gurney might not hold him, lawyers for Post said in federal court papers.

“Indeed, given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death,” the filing said.

Post is scheduled to die on January 16 for the 1983 death of Helen Vantz in Elyria, Ohio.

Inmates’ weight has come up previously in death penalty cases in Ohio and elsewhere.

In 2008, federal courts rejected arguments by condemned doublekiller Richard Cooey that he was too obese to die by injection. Cooey’s attorneys had argued that prison food and limited opportunities to exercise contributed to a weight problem that would make it difficult for the execution team to find a vein for lethal injection.

Cooey, who weighed 121kg, was executed on October 14, 2008.

In 2007, it took Ohio executioners about two hours to insert IVs into the veins of condemned inmate Christopher Newton, who weighed about 120kg.

A prison spokeswoman at the time said his size was an issue.

In Washington state in 1994, a federal judge upheld the conviction of Mitchell Rupe, but agreed with Rupe’s contention that at more than 180kg, he was too heavy to hang because of the risk of decapitation. Rupe argued that hanging would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

After numerous court rulings and a third trial, Rupe was eventually sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006.

Ohio executes inmates with a single dose of pentobarbital, usually injected through the arms.

Medical personnel have had a hard time inserting IVs into Post’s arms, according to the court filing. Four years ago, an Ohio State University medical centre nurse needed three attempts to insert an IV into Post’s left arm, the lawyers wrote. – AP