Killer’s bid for mercy notes opioid use

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. John Kasich should consider his fight against the state’s deadly opioid epidemic when deciding whether to spare a condemned killer whose life spiraled out of control after becoming addicted to painkillers, say attorneys trying to stop the killer’s execution set for next month.

Death-row inmate Raymond Tibbetts was doing fine until he was inappropriately prescribed painkillers for a work injury in the mid-1990s, according to documents provided Kasich by federal public defender Erin Barnhart.

“We know now just how devastating and deadly opioid addiction can be, and our government officials are rightly working to combat this epidemic on several fronts,” Barnhart wrote Kasich last year. Tibbetts deserves mercy because of “his addiction and unanswered requests for help with his struggle,” Barnhart wrote.

The Ohio Parole Board voted 11-1 last year against clemency for Tibbetts. Kasich, who has the final say, is expected to announce his decision soon. Drug overdoses killed a record 4,050 Ohioans in 2016. Kasich has pushed several initiatives to slow painkiller prescribing by doctors.

Tibbetts, 60, was sentenced to die for stabbing Fred Hicks to death at Hicks’ Cincinnati home in 1997. Tibbetts also received life imprisonment for fatally beating and stabbing his wife, 42-year-old Judith Crawford, during an argument that same day over Tibbetts’ crack cocaine habit.