Although the history of this tradition is difficult to trace, most modern governments that execute prisoners subscribe to it.
The ancient Greeks, Chinese, and Romans all traditionally gave the condemned man a final meal. The Aztecs fed their human sacrifices for up to a year before killing them.
In pre-modern Europe, granting the condemned a last meal has roots in superstition: a meal was a highly symbolic social act. Accepting freely offered food symbolized making peace with the host. The guest agreed tacitly to take an oath of truce and symbolically abjured all vengeance. Consequentially, in accepting the last meal the condemned was believed to forgive the executioner, the judge, and witnesses. The ritual was supposed to prevent the condemned from returning as a ghost or revenant to haunt those responsible for their killing. As a superstitious precaution, the better the food and drink, the safer the condemned's oath of truce. Last meals were often public, and all parties involved in the penal process took part.
this must be a first. not 100% sure. wow.
they should be taken outside and shot immediately.
FOX12Oregon
SALEM, Ore. -- A jury has recommended the death sentence for a father and son who planted a bomb that killed two police officers at a Woodburn bank.
Joshua Turnidge and his father, Bruce Turnidge, placed the bomb at a West Coast Bank in Woodburn in December 2008. The explosion killed a state police bomb technician and a Woodburn police captain.
The two men stood with their lawyers and showed very little emotion when Marion County Circuit Judge Tom Hart read the jury's recommendation.
During testimony, prosecutors said the Turnidges celebrated the Okalahoma City bombing and that Bruce Turnidge viewed Timothy McVeigh as a hero.
Over the course of the trial, the father and son turned on each other. Each placed the blame on the other.
Prosecutors had argued that a death sentence was the only way to protect the community from the Turnidges' violent actions. They portrayed the father and son as anti-government.
On Dec. 12, 2008, police responded to a suspicious device found at West Coast Bank in Woodburn. After they took it inside, it exploded.
Capt. Tom Tennant and OSP Senior Trooper William Hakim were killed. Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was wounded and woke up from a coma one week later.
Almost two years later, a jury convicted the Turnidges on 18 counts each of aggravated murder and other charges in connection with the bombing.
Janet Turnidge, the wife and mother of the bank bombers, kept her emotions hidden when the verdicts were read, while Joshua Turnidge’s girlfriend started to cry.
"It's all in God's hands. We don't know what going to happen eventually. We hope that the Tennant families and the Hakim families and everybody else Involved in this and their friends also, will find peace at some point in their lives. As we will hope to find, too," Janet Turnidge said.
interesting...i'm ordering the movie. and going to do some reading on the case.
CUTHBERT, GA (WALB) –The only woman ever to die in Georgia's electric chair now finally has a headstone on her grave. Lena Baker was executed in 1945 after she killed a man in defense in Cuthbert.
Wednesday, family members, gospel singers, and even strangers came together at Baker's place of worship in Cuthbert, for an emotional headstone dedication ceremony 65 years after her death.
For Roosevelt Curry, this headstone has been a long time coming, "It is a beautiful headstone and I am proud, I wish her children we able to see it today," he said.
65 years ago his great aunt, Lena Baker was executed in the electric chair, making her the only woman ever sentenced to die in the electric chair in Georgia. "I thank God for everything he did for me to get me this far with it because she really was treated bad," he said.
After her death, family members including Curry began working closely with the pardons and parole board, and in 2005 Baker was granted a pardon after her family pointed out she likely killed the man because he was holding her against her will. "I'm just glad I was able to do what I did, I asked for the pardon and that's what I have," he said.
Today, more than a dozen people gathered at Baker's place of worship, Mount Vernon Baptist Church for an emotional headstone dedication ceremony. "When we first started with Lena Baker we had about ten people, they had more today than they ever had," he said.
Letters from state leaders were read in Baker's honor, Rutha Mae Harris and the Freedom singers performed and the writer and producer of the Lena Baker Story broke down in tears at the podium.
For four years, Ralph Wilcox has been working on the Lena Baker story. "This is the first major motion picture done on Lena Baker," said Wilcox.
The film was released on DVD January 4th.
Wilcox hopes the film will touch the lives of others and leaves them inspired by her story.
The movie was filmed all over south Georgia including Early County, Baker County and Miller County. The jail scenes and the electrocution scene was filmed at a film and television studio in Colquitt.
Who did she kill? It left that part out. She looks like she'd fuck somebody up. hahahaha
(03-15-2013, 07:12 PM)aussiefriend Wrote: You see Duchess, I have set up a thread to discuss something and this troll is behaving just like Riotgear did.
More about this angel:
"At the age of 20, Baker and a friend found they could make money by "entertaining gentlemen". This came to attention of the Randolph County sheriff as their clientèle were white and interracial relationships were illegal in Georgia. The two were arrested and spent several months in a workhouse. On release she was ostracized by the black community, leading her to become an alcoholic. By the time she was in her early forties, Baker had three children"
She shot and killed her white employer. They claim the jury was racist. Soooo, if she shot and killed a black man it would have been OK?
(03-15-2013, 07:12 PM)aussiefriend Wrote: You see Duchess, I have set up a thread to discuss something and this troll is behaving just like Riotgear did.
In a session fraught with emotion and tears, family and friends of killer Timothy Wayne Adams on Tuesday publicly called on the state's pardons board to spare the life of the one-time security guard who is to be executed later this month for the murder of his 19-month-old son.
The public plea came one day after the Texas Defender Service formally asked the board to recommend that Gov. Rick Perry commute the 42-year-old man's sentence to life in prison. During Perry's tenure, the board only twice has recommended commutation, and the governor on both occasions allowed the executions to proceed.
Defender Service lawyer Katherine Black said Adams has exhausted his court appeals.
"My grandson meant the world to me," said the killer's father, career Houston firefighter Columbus Adams. "The family and I have been suffering tremendously from that day to this day. In dealing with my son, I told him I would be with him to the end. He has been remorseful from day one."
Both the elder Adams and his wife, Wilma, said they have forgiven their son.
"I would ask the governor and the board to, just for a moment, try to put themselves in my place and see how they would feel," Wilma Adams said. "We all make terrible mistakes, but God is a forgiving God and we all need to learn to forgive. Taking Timothy's life is not going to bring back my grandson."
The condemned man's parents said they visit him as often as once a week, and as relatives, church colleagues and friends gathered at the Adams' northeast Houston home, a death row photo of the killer stood in a place of honor on a living room table.
Adams is set to die Feb. 22 for the Feb. 20, 2002 murder of Timothy Adams Jr., whom he shot during a standoff with police at his home. The police siege grew out of a dispute between Adams and his wife, Emma, who was in the process of moving out of the couple's residence. During the episode, Adams also threatened to commit suicide.
Note to his wife
"Look what you and your selfish pride did," Adams wrote his wife in a note found at the scene. "... You wish you had not called me those names now. You wished you had washed my clothes and fixed me something to eat now. You will never forget this, will you, Bitch!"
Adams' ex-wife, the dead child's mother, was not among those asking that his life be spared.
In the clemency petition, Black contends that Adams was a decent, hard-working Christian man who, suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety condition, snapped in a moment of intense stress. Jurors, she argued, were not allowed to hear testimony from family members who would have vouched for his good character.
'He just popped'
The petition asserts that two jurors said they would have opposed assessing the death penalty had they heard more about Adams' background.
Adams pleaded guilty to the murder.
Twice in recent weeks, Adams agreed to death row interviews, but failed to appear.
His brother, Chadrick Adams, a licensed counselor, likened his brother's emotional state to a "shaken bottle of soda water."
"He was always shaken and it never showed," he said. "The day of the incident, he just popped."
The killer's family members and other supporters argued Adams could be a positive influence on other inmates, if spared.
"People don't know the magnitude of things that build up with you," said Willie Beck, a deacon at the Adams family's church. "To take his life, I don't think that would serve justice.
"There's no pain like the pain this family has already been through. This will just put the family through more pain. Timothy will have gone on to his rest, but his family will still be suffering, still be crushed."
The execution of Martin Link, the first in Missouri in nearly two years, was carried out at 12:15 a.m. local time Wednesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre after last-minute appeals failed, Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Cline said.
Gov. Jay Nixon earlier on Tuesday denied a clemency petition, and appeals before Missouri and U.S. federal courts also failed.
Nixon said nothing had changed since Link was convicted of killing Elissa Self-Braun, who disappeared walking to her school bus stop. Her body was found four days later floating in the St. Francis River, about 135 miles from her home.
The execution used sodium thiopental, a drug no longer made by Hospira, Inc., the only U.S. company that manufactured the drug. The company said recently that it will no longer make the drug because it does not want it to be used in executions.
Missouri's last execution was in 2009, and another man, Richard Clay, was scheduled to die earlier this year. His sentence was commuted to life in prison at the last minute by Nixon.
The execution of Link was the fifth this year in the United States. There were 46 executions in the U.S. during 2010, down 12 percent from 2009. Since 1989, Missouri has executed 67 men.
Good riddance!
R.I.P. Elissa :(
"Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed."
In a session fraught with emotion and tears, family and friends of killer Timothy Wayne Adams on Tuesday publicly called on the state's pardons board to spare the life of the one-time security guard who is to be executed later this month for the murder of his 19-month-old son.
The public plea came one day after the Texas Defender Service formally asked the board to recommend that Gov. Rick Perry commute the 42-year-old man's sentence to life in prison. During Perry's tenure, the board only twice has recommended commutation, and the governor on both occasions allowed the executions to proceed.
Defender Service lawyer Katherine Black said Adams has exhausted his court appeals.
"My grandson meant the world to me," said the killer's father, career Houston firefighter Columbus Adams. "The family and I have been suffering tremendously from that day to this day. In dealing with my son, I told him I would be with him to the end. He has been remorseful from day one."
Both the elder Adams and his wife, Wilma, said they have forgiven their son.
"I would ask the governor and the board to, just for a moment, try to put themselves in my place and see how they would feel," Wilma Adams said. "We all make terrible mistakes, but God is a forgiving God and we all need to learn to forgive. Taking Timothy's life is not going to bring back my grandson."
The condemned man's parents said they visit him as often as once a week, and as relatives, church colleagues and friends gathered at the Adams' northeast Houston home, a death row photo of the killer stood in a place of honor on a living room table.
Adams is set to die Feb. 22 for the Feb. 20, 2002 murder of Timothy Adams Jr., whom he shot during a standoff with police at his home. The police siege grew out of a dispute between Adams and his wife, Emma, who was in the process of moving out of the couple's residence. During the episode, Adams also threatened to commit suicide.
Note to his wife
"Look what you and your selfish pride did," Adams wrote his wife in a note found at the scene. "... You wish you had not called me those names now. You wished you had washed my clothes and fixed me something to eat now. You will never forget this, will you, Bitch!"
Adams' ex-wife, the dead child's mother, was not among those asking that his life be spared.
In the clemency petition, Black contends that Adams was a decent, hard-working Christian man who, suffering from an undiagnosed anxiety condition, snapped in a moment of intense stress. Jurors, she argued, were not allowed to hear testimony from family members who would have vouched for his good character.
'He just popped'
The petition asserts that two jurors said they would have opposed assessing the death penalty had they heard more about Adams' background.
Adams pleaded guilty to the murder.
Twice in recent weeks, Adams agreed to death row interviews, but failed to appear.
His brother, Chadrick Adams, a licensed counselor, likened his brother's emotional state to a "shaken bottle of soda water."
"He was always shaken and it never showed," he said. "The day of the incident, he just popped."
The killer's family members and other supporters argued Adams could be a positive influence on other inmates, if spared.
"People don't know the magnitude of things that build up with you," said Willie Beck, a deacon at the Adams family's church. "To take his life, I don't think that would serve justice.
"There's no pain like the pain this family has already been through. This will just put the family through more pain. Timothy will have gone on to his rest, but his family will still be suffering, still be crushed."
Another POS coward threatening to commit suicide but kills someone else instead - his own toddler son! Lowest of the low, execute this POS now and let the maggots have him.
The grandparents talk about how their "grandson meant the world" to them, but they don't even use his name?
This guy killed his own baby boy and the guy's parents are knocking themselves out trying to excuse his behavior. I can see where he got his coping skills.
(CBS/WOIO/AP) Ohio has executed cross-dressing Nazi-sympathizer Frank Spisak, who shot three people to death nearly 30 years ago on the campus of Cleveland State University in a shooting rampage that targeted African Americans.
Spisak, 59, was pronounced dead Thursday at 10:34 a.m. following a lethal injection of sodium thiopental at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, about 80 miles outside of Columbus.
He set the Ohio record for the longest time on death row before his execution, at more than 27 years.
Spisak's racially motivated shooting spree took place from February 1982 to August 1982, reports CBS affiliate WOIO. He was found guilty of murder after attempting to start a race war in Cleveland by searching out and shooting African Americans while on what he called "hunting missions."
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Spisak's final appeal Wednesday afternoon, turning down his request to delay his execution while he argued the constitutionality of Ohio's death penalty law.
Spisak is responsible for the deaths of 57-year-old Rev. Horace Rickerson, 50-year-old Timothy Sheehan and 17-year-old Brian Worford. Sheehan was Spisak's only white victim, reports WOIO.
His attorneys claimed he was bi-polar and was too mentally ill to die.
During his 1983 trial, Spisak grew a Hitler-style mustache, carried a copy of Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" and gave the Nazi salute to the jury.
WOIO obtained a statement released by the Sheehan family after Spisak's execution.
"Today we chose to celebrate the life of husband and father, Timothy Sheehan, not the death of Frank Spisak," the statement read. "We are grateful that the justice system has worked, and appreciate those in the criminal justice system whose diligent efforts have helped bring this matter to a final resolution."
Spisak reportedly blamed the 1982 shootings on his hatred of homosexuals, African Americans, Jews and on his mental illness, which was supposedly related to confusion about his own sexual identity.
yes. we should go back to other means. hanging is good.
from Daily Mail UK:
Two American prisoners died in agony in botched lethal injections after being given allegedly defective anesthetic supplied by a British drug company.
The grisly details of the deaths of murderers Emmanuel Hammond, executed by the state of Georgia last month, and Brandon Rhode, put to death there last September, will form the basis of a High Court action to be launched on Tuesday.
Both kept their eyes open when they should have been in a coma and Hammond grimaced in pain.
The legal action, brought by the campaign group Reprieve on behalf of the Rhode family, aims to force the British pharmaceutical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), to recall all the anaesthetic supplied for executions by Dream Pharma, a tiny company located in West London.
If successful, the case would halt executions in Georgia and many other states. U.S. ‘execution protocols’ say the anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, must be administered first in lethal injections to render the prisoner fully unconscious.
Then he or she is given pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that makes it impossible to breathe, and potassium chloride, a caustic chemical that stops the heart.
There are no U.S. firms currently able to supply thiopental. Dream Pharma’s consignments, sent last summer to states including Georgia, California, Arkansas and Arizona, were the last from Britain before Business Secretary Vince Cable imposed a ban in December on exporting drugs for executions.
The Mail on Sunday interviewed three witnesses to the most recent botched execution, that of Hammond, 45, who raped and murdered a teacher, Julie Love, in 1988. All said that he remained conscious as he was put to death on January 24.
Professor Sheri Johnson, of Cornell University law school, a member of Hammond’s legal team, said she stared at him throughout as she knew the previous prisoner to be executed using the Dream Pharma thiopental – Rhode – had kept his eyes open throughout and had not lost consciousness.
Prof Johnson said: ‘He closed his eyes perhaps ten seconds after the drugs started. But then, some time later, he opened them again. Perhaps one or two minutes after that, his mouth screwed up to one side. It looked painful, as if it could be a grimace of pain.’
Reporter Josh Green also said Hammond first closed and then reopened his eyes some time after receiving the thiopental. Later, he wrote, he observed Hammond give out ‘short bursts of breath that lifted his lips’.
Jill Rand, a Florida nurse who became Hammond’s penfriend, said that she too saw him move his lips.
Several witnesses also said Rhode, 31 – who murdered three members of the same family in 2000 – kept his eyes open throughout.
Maya Foa, an investigator at Reprieve, said: ‘If it’s not recalled, more prisoners are likely to die in agony.’
Georgia’s next scheduled execution is on March 1.
Ms Foa said Reprieve was also taking statements from witnesses to a third ‘botched’ execution – Jeffrey Landrigan, 50, in Arizona in October.
I've advocated public hanging for years. As to this 'botched' business, so what? They won't remember the pain when they're dead. After whatever they did to deserve the death penalty, we should worry if it gives them a little pain in return? Not.
Ohio's electric chair among artifacts going on display:
Daily Mail
An electric chair called Old Sparky, a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood and a cage that mental patients used to be locked up in will go on display in a museum.
The exhibit at Ohio's Historical Center entitled 'Controversy: Pieces You Don't Normally See' is spotlighting the artefacts from the more provocative side of the state's history.
Curator Sharon Dean said: 'History definitely isn't always pretty.
'The more we can stare some of things that aren't so pretty in the face, I think the more we can have honest, open discussions and start really working through some issues that, to date, have been fairly difficult.'
Old Sparky was used to execute 312 men and three women between 1897 and 1963.
The last time members of the general public could see the chair was when the old Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus offered tours, which ended in the early 1930s.
The prison sold postcards of the electric chair and souvenir pictures of the condemned men until it discontinued the tours.
The chair replaced hanging in 1897 as Ohio's method of execution.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, William Haas, 17, from Hamilton County, was the first to die in the hand-fashioned wood-and-steel chair. Donald Reinbolt, 29, of Columbus, was the last to be electrocuted, on March 15, 1963.
The electric chair was replaced by lethal injection as the state's sole means of execution in 2001. It was donated to the Ohio Historical Society in 2002 and has been in storage since.
Up close, the chair shows ominous signs of 66 years as the machinery of death.
The wooden arms, gripped by hands of the condemned, and the cushioned headrest are well-worn. But the leather bands that circled prisoners' wrists and metal ones that bound their ankles look like new.
Old Sparky: The wood and steel electric chair shows signs of wear and tear on the arm and head rest where inmates gripped on tightly before and during execution.
This wooden cage was used to store mental health patients in at the Longview State Mental facility during the 1800s. It is now on display at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus
Ms Dean said: 'If you look closely, it does show signs of wear on it, that a lot of people have, in fact, sat in it. But it's been maintained very well.'
Other pieces on display at the Columbus museum from April 1 until November 20 are a 150-year-old sheepskin condom found in the diary of a steamboat captain and an aluminium mitt used in the early 20th century to stop children from sucking their thumbs.
The wooden cage used to hold state mental patients is from the late 1800s.
Ms Dean said: 'It's a cage that was used for humans. The proper term was a crib-bed, and even at that time they found that it was a difficult restraint to use on people.'
Children under 18 will be barred from visiting the exhibit unless accompanied by an adult.
The items will be displayed with bare-bones identifying labels in a small room fitting not more than 20 people – to let the objects speak for themselves and to encourage visitors to talk about them, museum officials said.
Executive director of the Ohio Historical Society, Burt Logan, who oversees the historical centre, said: 'We think this is one of the attributes of this exhibit, to generate conversations about complex issues in Ohio's history.
"'History has a good side, which we often remember, and another side that we don't often see. We are not taking a stand of any type with this collection.
'These items represent part of the history of Ohio. It's purely an educational issue.'
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced Wednesday that he has signed legislation eliminating the death penalty in his state, more than 10 years after the state halted executions.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," Quinn (pictured), a Democrat, told reporters in making the announcement.
Illinois conducted its last execution in 1999. Then-Gov. George Ryan halted executions in 2000, after a series of death row inmates were exonerated. Quinn said his review had convinced him that it was impossible to administer capital punishment without mistakes, and abolishing it was "the right and just thing."
(03-09-2011, 02:57 PM)Lady Cop Wrote: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced Wednesday that he has signed legislation eliminating the death penalty in his state, more than 10 years after the state halted executions.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," Quinn (pictured), a Democrat, told reporters in making the announcement.
Illinois conducted its last execution in 1999. Then-Gov. George Ryan halted executions in 2000, after a series of death row inmates were exonerated. Quinn said his review had convinced him that it was impossible to administer capital punishment without mistakes, and abolishing it was "the right and just thing."
Certainly well intentioned, but IMHO not in the people's best interests.
(03-09-2011, 02:57 PM)Lady Cop Wrote: Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced Wednesday that he has signed legislation eliminating the death penalty in his state, more than 10 years after the state halted executions.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," Quinn (pictured), a Democrat, told reporters in making the announcement.
Illinois conducted its last execution in 1999. Then-Gov. George Ryan halted executions in 2000, after a series of death row inmates were exonerated. Quinn said his review had convinced him that it was impossible to administer capital punishment without mistakes, and abolishing it was "the right and just thing."
Certainly well intentioned, but IMHO not in the people's best interests.
The right and just thing for who? I can't believe he signed that bill to abolish it. I'd rather have that shady ass Blagojevich back. So now us tax payers gets to pay for all those criminals to sit and die on their own. JMO on this.
LUCASVILLE OHIO— Johnnie Roy Baston became America's first inmate executed solely by a massive overdose of the powerful anesthetic pentobarbital Thursday morning.
Baston, 37, was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. for the March 21, 1994 slaying of Chong-Hoon Mah, a former South Korean journalist who emigrated to Toledo and owned the downtown shop Continental Wigs ‘n Things.
“For a long time I didn’t see a lot of value in myself,’’ Baston said shortly before the drug began to flow into his veins inside the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution. “It wasn’t until this moment, 'til I had to go through this ordeal, that I have seen so much love from so many people, letters from people all over the world, and even Ohio.’’
He briefly interrupted his final statement as he fought back tears.
“I was hoping I didn’t cry,’’ he said.
“It’s OK. It’s OK if you cry,’’ an older brother, Richard Baston, told him from behind the glass separating witnesses from the lethal injection chamber.
Another brother, Ron Baston, stood, slammed his right arm against a wall, and uttered an expletive as Johnnie Roy Baston, who was adopted by the Baston family, appeared to stop breathing.
I would like to say to my family I am very sorry. I know this is not what they wanted to have happen. I hope they won’t be too bothered by what is taking place today.
It is not their doing. Just the way things go.
I hope my execution, that it will be the last, that people will open up. The victims in my case didn’t want me to be executed. They wanted life
without parole. That should have been respected. That should have been respected by our governor ...
I made a bad decision and I hope my family can move on and find some comfort and peace. I would like to say I’m sorry to my family. I made a bad decision.
I want you to reach out to my children. I love them so much. I want you to tell them stories about me. I want them to know the good things about me, even through my time in prison I wanted to better myself, encourage others. Remind them of that. My daughter, she’s quiet, a lot like me. Just like me.
I want you to watch her. If she talks, listen.
I want to thank all the members of my church, my friends who petitioned, letters, faxed, Twittered, hopefully, to the governor, to show mercy.
For a long time I didn’t see a lot of value in myself. It wasn’t until this moment till I had to go through this ordeal that I have seen so much love from so many people. Letters from people all over the world, and even Ohio.
I appreciate every last letter, I appreciate every last card, every last prayer, every last encouragement.
I was hoping I didn’t cry.
Dear heavenly father, I have sinned, and I repent of my sins, I pray for forgiveness. As I close my eyes on the light of this world, I hope to open my eyes to the light in heaven.
While admittingly participating in a robbery of Mr. Mah, Baston had maintained for 17 years that a man he knew only by the name of “Ray Ray’’ was the one who killed the victim in the back of his store. But the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said Baston on Friday confessed to the slaying after his family and legal team had arranged for a polygraph test in hopes of improving his chances for gubernatorial clemency.
Gov. John Kasich denied Baston’s petition for clemency later on Friday. He agreed with a 9-0 recommendation from the Ohio Parole Board that Baston’s case did not warrant mercy, despite the fact that the Mah family presented a united front in opposing the execution.
“I hope my execution, that it will be the last, that people will open up,’’ Baston said Thursday. “The victims in my case didn’t want me to be executed. They wanted life without parole. That should have been respected. That should have been respected by our governor.’’
He concluded his statement by saying, “Dear Heavenly Father, I have sinned, and I repent of my sins,’’ he said. “I pray for forgiveness. As I close my eyes on the light of this world, I hope to open my eyes to the light in Heaven.’’
Baston was escorted from his cell into the death chamber at 10:04 a.m. For the first time, medical technicians inserted the intravenous shunts into someone scheduled to die while inside the execution chamber instead of doing that while inside the inmate's prison cell.
Although a curtain prevented witnesses from directly seeing that process, a court settlement provided for it to take place in the execution chamber so that Baston’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Rob Lowe, would be able to hear if Baston called out if something went wrong. He did not.
Baston appeared to demonstrate some brief discomfort during the shunt process. At the point when the drug appeared to be setting in, Baston briefly grimaced and then fell still. He took a few deep breaths and then moved no more.
“Oh, man …’’ Ron Baston cried in the witness chamber. “That is so barbaric, man.’’
His brother, Richard, held him as he sobbed. “We’ll clear his name … we’ll get justice for him,’’ he told him.
DRC spokesman Carlo Loparo again confirmed Thursday that Baston had confessed to the murder. Baston did not address the subject in his final statement beyond saying he made a “bad decision.’’
Prior to his confession, Baston claimed that “Ray Ray’’ had come to Toledo from Chicago to recruit for the Vice Lords gang and that the robbery was to be Baston’s initiation. Baston had the gun in his possession when he was arrested soon afterwards while attending a church retreat in Columbus.
Police also found clothing stolen from the store in an apartment Baston was sharing with a friend after his adoptive mother, his biological aunt, had thrown him out of the house for taking the gun.
No one from the Mah family witnessed the execution.
Just prior to the execution, Richard Baston denounced the contention that his younger brother had confessed, saying he still maintains he wasn’t the gunman. Under Ohio law, if Johnnie Baston wasn’t the shooter, there could be no death penalty.
Richard Baston characterized the confession as a “miscommunication,’’ saying his brother made the statement believing it was a test for the polygraph. The test itself was never completed.
“”He did not confess to any crime whatsoever in shooting Mr. Mah. We want that known,’’ he said.
He said his brother told him earlier that morning, “I’m at peace. I know what I did, and I know what I didn’t do.’’
Pentobarbital has typically been used to induce coma in heart patients and has been used in assisted suicides. This marked its first use as the sole method of executing an inmate in the United States.
Oklahoma has used the drug as part of a three-drug cocktail.
Ohio switched drugs after the sole U.S. manufacturer of its prior drug ceased production as it merged operations with a plant in the United Kingdom, which does not have capital punishment. The manufacturers of both drugs have denounced their use as part of executions.
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