Lorain/Elyria, OH
Death penalty no joke to judge
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ELYRIA — Darth Vader won’t be making an appearance next week when county Common Pleas Judge James Burge holds hearings on the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection process.
Burge angrily rebuffed defense attorney Jeff Gamso’s suggestion that the three members of the state’s execution team who administer the lethal drugs to condemned inmates hide their identities behind the three masks of the “Star Wars” villain he brought to court Thursday.
“There’s nothing funny here,” Burge said. “We’ve got two guys here who are counting on you to be serious, grown men.”
Gamso, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, had asked Burge to allow the three medically trained execution team members to testify during the hearings. The state has worked hard to keep the identities of all the team members a secret even after Burge ordered the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to turn over details of how the execution process is carried out.
Burge said he would allow the three team members to testify out of the courtroom if it was needed, but he said next week’s hearing would focus on the testimony of two experts who have reviewed the information turned over by the prison system.
Gamso later apologized for the comment about the masks, but Assistant Ohio Attorney General Steve Maher, didn’t accept it.
“The presentation by Mr. Gamso of three Darth Vader masks belies his comments,” Maher said.
Gamso’s request came after Assistant County Prosecutor Tony Cillo had laid out concerns that Burge, a former defense attorney, may already have formed an opinion on the death penalty.
Cillo quoted from numerous newspaper articles detailing Burge’s visits and conversations with his former client, James Filiaggi, who was executed last year for the 1994 murder of his wife.
Burge said he had visited Filiaggi and urged him to join a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the lethal injection process, but he said he did so at the request of Filiaggi’s mother.
“I told him I thought he owed it to his mother to join the lawsuit,” Burge said.
Burge also explained why he keeps a picture of Filiaggi in his office at the county Justice Center.
“Every time I look at the picture, it reminds me of the things I could have done that could have been outcome determinant and maybe made a difference,” Burge said.
Cillo also had questioned the discussions Burge and Gamso, who represented Filiaggi in some of his appeals, had while the two were in Lucasville for the execution last year.
Burge said he told Gamso to talk to attorneys for accused killers Ruben Rivera and Ronald McCloud, who are challenging the lethal injection process on the grounds that the three-drug cocktail used by Ohio and other states doesn’t offer a quick and painless death.
“I have never expressed my view on the constitutionality of the lethal injection process to Mr. Gamso or anyone else for that matter,” Burge said.
Kreig Brusnahan, one of Rivera’s attorneys, called Cillo’s concerns a “thinly veiled effort to get the judge to recuse himself.”
But Burge said he didn’t take it that way. The judge said Cillo made it clear he wanted to make sure Rivera and McCloud were aware of Burge’s history if it came up in a later appeal.
Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.
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Where is the County Prosecutor?
Where is the States Attorney General?
We have a judge who OBVIOUSLY has a bias in regards to the death penalty and they sit idly by while he starts the wheel rolling to have the death penalty ruled cruel and unusual punishment.
“There’s nothing funny here,†Burge said. “We’ve got two guys here who are counting on you to be serious, grown men.â€
That is his own quote…”WE’VE got two guys”? Who the hell is we?
No, your honorless…it should have been YOU’VE when addressing those attorneys. They’re arguing this case, not you!!!!
This county and this state cannot afford to have assistants running this show. We need the biggest guns there is to stop this man, before it’s too late, and we’re all sitting around saying “I wonder how that happened”.
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He has a picture of Filiaggi in his office????? It should be a picture of Filiaggi’s WIFE!!!!!
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I’ll buy a new set of Mask if they don’t like the Star Wars, can get Porky Pig, hillary Clinton, Obama, etc.
They are “ON DEATH ROW”, so there is a reason they are there, THEY KILLED SOMEONE!!
If they don’t like the lethal injection process, how about tying them between two semi’s, wait that would mess up Route 57. How about let them go they same what they killed their victim. If they used a gun, its a firing squad, drugs let it be the gas chamber, choking the hangmans noose, anything els could be lethal injection.
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Actually, at least one of the men is NOT on death row. He hasn’t even been tried, despite the fact that he brutally raped and murdered Janet Barnard nearly three years ago. Seems to me he’s feeling mighty guilty if he’s jumping on this band wagon.
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Bravo to Judge Burge for doing what not many other judges would do and take on a case such as this. I only hope that the process is shown to be cruel and unusual punishment and all death row inmates have their sentences commuted to life in prison with no parole. It is a barbaric system that has its history stamped in racial discrimination. Plus we are quick to jump on the wagon to cal them all monsters and so forth yet we do not know or have witnessed all of these supposed crimes. There have been 128 people placed on death row in this country that have been found innocent of the crimes they were convicted for after serving on average over 8 yearson death row, that is FLAWED… Just this week another male, 13 yrs on death row, was released after false imprisonment.. That is ridiculous this guy spent that long falsely accused and that had it not been for someone looking in to the case he would have easily been put to death.. Judge Burge, pay no attention to those that ridicule you. Do the job you were assigned to do, and make the conclusion you see fit for this.
For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14,15)
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R.T.:
Please do not try to give Bible lessons here:
For there is a verse for every crime, every situation that exists that can be interpreted, and twisted, as one sees fit.
For example:
Exodus 21: 23-25 states:
23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
But just for kicks and giggles, let’s go a few verses prior,
to Exodus 21, verses 12-17:
12 Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to DEATH. 13 If it was not premeditated, but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee. 14 But if someone wilfully attacks and kills another by treachery, you shall take the killer from my altar for EXECUTION.
15 Whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to DEATH.
16 Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to DEATH.
17 Whoever curses father or mother shall be…yes, put to DEATH.
So…I think my “let em fry” verses outnumber your “turn the other cheek” verses.
When the allmighty feels it’s time to get off his holy butt and come down HERE and administer punishment, in our world, then people like you can dictate what type of punishment is divvied out. Till then, leave the punishment to sane people, cause if we went by your bible, there would hardly be a criminal alive today.
And…before you start crying discrimination, please go to your local library and check out an Almanac…it’s a book of facts…in black and white, and inform yourself of some FACTS. Not emotion, not self pity and not guilt.
And besides R.T., your verse says nothing about NOT punishing, but to forgive. I’ll gladly forgive all murderers, in the same moment I pull the lever, or push the button to give them the punishment they brought upon themselves.
oh…and God bless you too
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The Raven,
I see your a person who has lost their fate for one, don’t scrutinize me because I still hold mine. Second, you like many people love to speak the Old Testament and forget all about the New Edition for which you were saved from. Thirdly, look at the statistics and you will see that the death penalty does nothing to deter crime much less murder and it has not done so in the 30 plus years it has been reinstated. Now I feel you are one of those people that would love to see others killed and thats your thing but I on the other hand believe everyone, victim and offender, have the right to life much like you and I. Don’t chastise me for lacking to see your point on killing another human being. Do yourself a favor and join the army. You’ll have all the opportunity in the world to do all the killing you want then. Unless you want to spend your time sitting online commenting away.
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