Too Fat to be Executed. Awww....

[Captain_BluTac]

Let's make a death camp

Only if we get to smash babies against a brick wall.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

Only if we get to smash babies against a brick wall.

I'm ok with killing kids too

 

[Captain_BluTac]

I'm ok with killing kids too

So we can set up the death camp in an orphanage!

 

[Spidey-Bat]

No, it punishes the perpetrator. Which is appropriate. I don't like the death penalty, but I do think it is absolutely appropriate in certain instances.

I think 50+ years in prison with no chance of getting out is a worse punishment.

I do believe it has lost it's effect as a deterrence to crime because of the lengthy appeals process, such as in this case, which has apparently taken 22 years.

The idea that the death penalty is a deterrent at all is a myth. It never had an effect as a deterrent. Many criminals think they're too smart to get caught or do a crime without thinking of the consequences.

Seems to me that those who scream the loudest aren't the families... It's people like the first poster. "Kill, torture". If someone gave them a gun/knife, and they had the chance to kill/torture a convicted criminal, I doubt they would have taken it. They always expect someone else to do it.

"I want see blood. But not on my own hands".

That is true. There are families of victims who do not want to see their relative's killer executed.

 

[hammy]

I think 50+ years in prison with no chance of getting out is a worse punishment.

There is always the chance of escape or being paroled for lack of space or some other lame excuse. Many criminals are repeat offenders. If they're dead, they won't be.

The idea that the death penalty is a deterrent at all is a myth. It never had an effect as a deterrent.

That absolutely is not true. As I said, living an additional 22 years is not a deterrent. But fewer appeals and swifter justice, as well as bringing back public executions, would make it a deterrent.

 

[Schlosser85]

The idea that the death penalty is a deterrent at all is a myth. It never had an effect as a deterrent.

Actually the death penalty is 100% effective as a deterrent. Once you've been executed, you'll never commit a crime again, guaranteed.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

There is always the chance of escape or being paroled for lack of space or some other lame excuse. Many criminals are repeat offenders. If they're dead, they won't be.

I found data from 1998 that showed 0.5% of criminals in state prisons escaped. The vast majority of escapees are "walk-aways" from community corrections facilities that have minimal supervision. The maximum security escapes like in movies aren't happening. And most of these "walk-aways" are quickly recaptured.

In federal prisons, one person escaped in 1999 and was recaptured. He was the first to escape in 4 years.

I found information about escapes in Florida from 2005-2006. 122 prisoners escaped. None were in a state prison facility when they escaped. 120 were from non-secure work release/contract centers; 1 was from a work camp/road prison, and 1 of the inmates who escaped was housed in prison but was on an outside work detail at the time of escape. 112 were recaptured and 61 of those 112 were recaptured within 24 hours of their escape.

Life without parole means there is no parole. Let's not confuse parole with being released into the world. There's more to it than that.

That absolutely is not true. As I said, living an additional 22 years is not a deterrent. But fewer appeals and swifter justice, as well as bringing back public executions, would make it a deterrent.

I find that hard to believe. If the death penalty isn't enough of a deterrence, fewer appeals, swifter justice, and public executions aren't going to change that.

BTW, fewer appeals and swifter justice sound like corruption waiting to happen. It's not a stretch to believe someone could be prosecuted swiftly without all the evidence being examined and be wrongfully executed.

I'm going to back pedal on this issue a bit because I support the death penalty in cases like Timothy McVeigh. People responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands deserve to die. Only in these extreme cases do I support the death penalty.

 

[Schlosser85]

I'm going to back pedal on this issue a bit because I support the death penalty in cases like Timothy McVeigh. People responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands deserve to die. Only in these extreme cases do I support the death penalty.

But then where is the cut off point? What about someone like Ted Bundy, who murdered dozens of women? Does someone who murders 100 people deserve the death penalty but not someone who murders 50? I'm not trying to mock you, I am curious about your answer.

 

[Darthphere]

You people really do act like someone serving life is prison is serving it at the Holiday Inn Express.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

But then where is the cut off point? What about someone like Ted Bundy, who murdered dozens of women? Does someone who murders 100 people deserve the death penalty but not someone who murders 50? I'm not trying to mock you, I am curious about your answer.

Ted Bundy was a serial killer. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. That's my line.

 

[imdaly]

Looking further into this dude's history, this is not the first time he's tried to find an excuse to get out of his death sentence:

RICHARD COOEY EXECUTION STAYED

Richard Cooey, 36, received a stay just 12 hours before being put to death by lethal injection.

U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster granted the request of the Ohio Public Defender for more time to study the case.

Attorneys Margery Koosed and Nathan Ray raised claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in the federal courts, but The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was dissatisfied with Koosed and Ray’s legal assistance. At the last minute, the Ohio Public Defender was assigned by a Judge Polster, to file any remaining federal appeals available to Cooey.

Polster said that based on the 6th Circuit's letters to Koosed and Ray, not only was Cooey possibly deprived of competent counsel, he also was without any federal representation for at least five weeks before his execution date.

"Reasoned and thoughtful people may debate the significance of the life of Richard Cooey. ... It is our responsibility as federal judges to ensure the integrity of our own process, and that is why I have stayed Cooey's execution," Polster said.

Earlier Wednesday, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 6-0 to uphold the 9th Ohio District Court of Appeals' decision that Cooey could not reopen his claim of ineffective assistance from the lawyers who handled his original 1987 appeal.

Cooey also has an appeal pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a review of his case based on an allegation that prosecutors reneged on a deal to offer Cooey a plea bargain at his original trial. On Tuesday, Judge Jane Bond of Summit County Common Pleas Court rejected Cooey's request for a hearing on the same issue. The nation's highest court had not ruled by late Wednesday.

Gov. Bob Taft on Tuesday denied Cooey's request for clemency. A unanimous state parole board said earlier this month that Mr. Taft should not grant clemency to Cooey.

Cooey was convicted in the deaths of two University of Akron students in September 1986. His co-defendant, Clint Dickens was 17 at the time of the crime and could not be sentenced to death. He is serving a life sentence.

Source


And he was originally scheduled to be executed on July 24, 2003.



Oh and here's some more info about what happened:

Richard Wade Cooey sits on death row in Ohio on borrowed time, but he’s got plenty of it.

Two years ago next month, Cooey was 13 hours from a date with the executioner when his attorneys completed the legal equivalent of football’s “hail mary” play and bought the rapist-murderer something he denied his two young victims — more time to live.

Recently, Cooey marked the end of his 19th year on death row. He has spent almost as much time there as his victims, Dawn McCreedy and Wendy Offredo spent on earth.

In 1986, Cooey was home on leave from the U.S. Army. He spent the day of August 31 drinking with a pair of friends from high school, Clint Dickins and another man who was not charged in relation to the crimes that sent Cooey to death row. Late in the evening on the 31st Cooey and his brain-trust were amusing themselves by throwing pieces of concrete from an overpass at the cars on the highway below.

One of the concrete blocks — about the size of a basketball — struck the windshield of a car driven by college student Wendy Offredo, who along with her friend Dawn McCreedy, had just finished a shift at a local coffee shop, the Brown Derby.

The women were unhurt by the attack, but that was when their luck ran out.
Cooey, Dickins and the other man approached the women, who had pulled the undrivable car over to the side of the highway and offered to take them back to a nearby shopping center to call for assistance. The women accepted the ride.

While Wendy was talking to her mother, Dickens saw money in her purse. He suggested to Cooey and the other man that the three of them rob Wendy and Dawn. Cooey replied, “I’m game if you’re game.” This agreement came after Cooey himself spoke with Mrs. Offredo and promised her that nothing bad would happen to the girls. The group then left the deserted mall.

When they realized Cooey was not returning to the site of the “accident,” the women asked Cooey where he was going. He pulled out a knife and ordered them to “shut up.” He then gave the knife to Dickens, who opened it and held it on the women. Dawn gave up her purse, while she and Wendy asked their assailants not to hurt them. Cooey told one of his friends to tie Dawn’s hands, whereupon the man demanded to be let out of the car, and Cooey let him out. He did not call police to report the abduction, however.

Cooey drove the car to an isolated wooded area and the victims were forced to exit the car. Cooey raped McCreery while Dickens raped Offredo. Then, Cooey raped Offredo while Dickens raped McCreery. During this time, Cooey called out Dicken’s name (”hey Clint, put on the Bad Company tape,” he said.), which infuriated him. Dickens grabbed a billy club which had been placed on the hood of the car and began hitting a tree.

It was at that point that the men decided the girls had to die.

Cooey grabbed Offredo in a choke hold, strangling her until she was unconscious. Once she was on the ground he tied her feet together with a red bandana. Dickens clubbed McCreery with the billy club when she attempted to escape. She eventually slumped to the ground. Cooey tied a shoestring around Offredo’s neck and Dickens tied another around McCreery’s. During this episode, both victims were beaten in the head with the billy club and McCreery was stabbed in the neck.

A few days following the murders, an informant called Akron detectives telling the police that Cooey was trying to sell jewelry belonging to the victims. The informant named the street Cooey lived on. The police immediately set up surveillance around Cooey’s house while two warrants were being obtained– one to search and one to arrest Cooey. Cooey attempted to leave the house and he was arrested. Items were removed from his person and from his grandmother’s automobile. Thereafter, the house was searched and various items were removed.

Dickens, the juvenile, was tried as an adult. He was found guilty, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Cooey waived his right to a trial by jury and a panel of judges was assigned to try him. Cooey was found guilty of two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of kidnaping, one count of felonious assault, and four counts of rape by the panel of judges, and sentenced to death.

The dance of the appellate lawyers began in 1987 and the convictions were upheld on direct and post-conviction appeals.

In 2000, a Sixth Circuit panel denied Cooey’s habeas corpus petition. After expressing its tentative conclusion that Cooey had failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, the judges directed him to show cause why it should not deny his application for permission to appeal that decision. Attached to the show cause order was an appendix summarizing the panel’s tentative findings with respect to each issue raised in the appeal. The appendix also detailed numerous instances of Cooey’s careless (or worse) brief writing. The appellate panel found that “some of Cooey’s claims were irrelevant, his case law inapposite, and his factual assertions erroneous,” a district court judge would write later.

In June 2003 after an execution date was set by the Ohio Supreme Court, the Ohio Parole Board conducted a clemency hearing and recommended Governor Bob Taft deny clemency, which he did.

On June 10, 2003, a little over one month before Cooey’s execution date, the Chief Deputy Clerk of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals mailed letters to the two attorneys who had represented Cooey in his habeas appeal, advising them that the Court of Appeals had removed them as his appellate counsel.
“The court has authorized me to tell you that you will not receive any new appointments on appeal or extensions of appointments under the Criminal Justice Act in capital cases,” the letters read. “This reflects the court’s dissatisfaction with both the quality of the appellate briefs and the oral argument in Cooey v. Coyle and the amount of the attorney ’s fees which were paid to you and [co-counsel] for Mr. Cooey’s representation.”

The Clerk then asked the Ohio Public Defender to find counsel to represent Cooey in the event that he intended to initiate any further federal litigation.
The Public Defender worked diligently to find someone, but reported back to the court on July 12, 2003 — 12 days before Cooey’s scheduled execution — that no one would take the case.

On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, Cooey filed in district court a pro se “Motion to Appoint Counsel in this Death Penalty Case in Which Execution is Set for July 24, 2003.” The federal judge appointed the Ohio Public Defender’s office to represent Cooey.

On July 22, 2003, Cooey filed a Rule 60(b) motion and a motion for stay of execution. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) provides a party with relief from judgment under certain circumstances: “On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or a party’s legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: (1) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect…or … any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment.”

On July 23, the families of Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery gathered in Lucasville, Ohio, site of the execution chamber where the next day, Richard Cooey would pay the ultimate price for his crimes.

Fate had another cruel twist in store for them.

The Rule 60(b) motion was made to Judge Dan Aaron Polster, who wrote just 13 hours before Cooey was to die, “The underlying premise of the stay of execution is that the Court of Appeals’ letters to Cooey’s prior appellate habeas counsel have cast a cloud over the integrity of the habeas process, and that it would be unseemly for Cooey to be executed while that cloud exists. Rule 60(b) relief is ‘reserved for those cases of injustices which, in certain instances, are deemed sufficiently gross’ and to prevent grave miscarriages of justice. The Court finds that the extraordinary circumstances in this case could warrant Rule 60(b) relief. It is for the Sixth Circuit to make the ultimate determination as to the meaning and import of its June 10, 2003 letters…I have had 48 hours to grapple with this unprecedented situation. Ultimately, I have concluded that the integrity of the federal courts would be impugned if the State of Ohio executes Richard Cooey tomorrow.”Polster knew the character of the man he was sparing.

“Here, Richard Cooey brutally raped and murdered two women. He and his associates set up this heinous crime by standing on a bridge and dropping a concrete chunk through the windshield of a randomly selected car as it passed underneath,” he wrote. “Cooey and his associates then tortured and murdered the two victims under the guise of offering assistance. A state that elects to establish a system of capital punishment presumably has in mind such defendants.

“Reasoned and thoughtful people may debate the significance of the life of Richard Cooey. The function of federal habeas corpus, however, is to ensure the integrity of a state’s judicial process, particularly when that may culminate in a defendant’s execution. It is our responsibility as federal judges to ensure the integrity of our own process, and that is why I have stayed Cooey’s execution.”

Eventually, the Sixth Circuit ruled that Cooey deserved another chance to demonstrate that his appellate lawyers were ineffective. His second round of post-conviction appeals is working its way through the state system.

Source



I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no sympathy for this monster.

 

[Addendum]

Paralyzing the lungs and diaphragm and inducing cardiac arrest is cruel and unusual. Not to mention in many cases the executed does not receive enough sedative and experiences pain none of us could ever comprehend.

Aww, the poor rapist could feel pain

 

[Spidey-Bat]

It's not about pain it's about cruel and unusual punishment.

 

[Addendum]

Which a rapist deserves

 

[imdaly]

I don't see anything cruel or unusual about making a double-rapist, double-murderer hurt when he's executed.

Not to mention considering what he did to both of his victims:

Cooey grabbed Offredo in a choke hold, strangling her until she was unconscious. Once she was on the ground he tied her feet together with a red bandana. Dickens clubbed McCreery with the billy club when she attempted to escape. She eventually slumped to the ground. Cooey tied a shoestring around Offredo’s neck and Dickens tied another around McCreery’s. During this episode, both victims were beaten in the head with the billy club and McCreery was stabbed in the neck

And that's AFTER he raped both of them.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

I don't see anything cruel or unusual about making a double-rapist, double-murderer hurt when he's executed.

Not to mention considering what he did to both of his victims:



And that's AFTER he raped both of them.

I can understand why some people support the death penalty. But I believe two wrongs do NOT make a right. That doesn't mean I will cry when this bastard dies.

It's better to let *******s like him rot in jail.

 

[Finlandman]

Remember that following an eye for an eye, everybody will end up blind. Were supposed to be better people than just vengeful cavemen. It's true, that man did horrible things, but does that justife us to do the same?

 

[imdaly]

I'd argue that injecting someone with a needle a few times to administer a knockout before they inject a killing serum to a guy is not the same as tying up someone's hands, brutally raping them twice, then beating them over the heads over and over again with a nightstick and stabbing them in the neck.

 

[Troy_Parker]

Why Not Let Him Eat Hiself To Death

 

[bullets]

This whole thing is just wrong, not only what he did was horrible but to show him any kind of mercy is even worse, if he is 100% guilty of this crime, especially one as horrible as what he did any sympathy should be thrown out the window along with his fat ass

No matter how guilty or despicable we still have to show our humanity towards the prisoners. We have to show them that we do the right thing . It's imperative.

It's not like we could do something suspicious and hope to not get called out on it.

What i don't understand is , Why couldn't they just use a longer needle?

 

[bullets]

Why Not Let Him Eat Hiself To Death

It seems this man has been trying.

 

[terry78]

Judging by how fat he is, natural selection will soon take care of it.

 

[Raiden]

I don't see anything cruel or unusual about making a double-rapist, double-murderer hurt when he's executed.

Not to mention considering what he did to both of his victims:



And that's AFTER he raped both of them.

I know that we have tried to make sure the convicted murderers to not suffer "cruel and unusual" punishment, but keep in mind that those people did not do the same for their victims. If they are sentenced to die, either by lethal injection or other method, then we have to make sure it is carried out.

 

[SuperFerret]

Remember that following an eye for an eye, everybody will end up blind. Were supposed to be better people than just vengeful cavemen. It's true, that man did horrible things, but does that justife us to do the same?

We're not. People need to stop fooling themselves.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

We're not. People need to stop fooling themselves.

Having laws, a government, and stable society do a really good job of fooling people we aren't barbarians.