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Ohio inmate says he’s too fat for execution

Filed by Associated Press August 4th, 2008 in Top Stories.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A death row inmate scheduled for execution in October says he’s so fat that Ohio executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.

Lawyers for Richard Cooey argue in a federal lawsuit that Cooey had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and that the problem has been worsened by weight gain.

They cite a document filed by a prison nurse in 2003 that said Cooey had sparse veins and that executioners would need extra time.

“When you start the IV’s come 15 minutes early,” wrote the nurse who examined Cooey. “I don’t have any veins.”

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Columbus, also says prison officials have had difficulty drawing blood from Cooey for medical procedures. Cooey is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 267 pounds, according to the lawsuit.

Cooey, 41, was sentenced to die for raping and murdering two female University of Akron students — one of whom was from North Ridgeville — in 1986. After a federal judge granted Cooey a last-minute reprieve in 2003, Cooey was returned to death row. In April, he lost a challenge to Ohio’s lethal injection process when the U.S. Supreme Court said he had missed a deadline to file a lawsuit.

Cooey’s execution is scheduled for Oct. 14. He would be the first inmate put to death in Ohio since Christopher Newton was executed last year for killing a prison cellmate over their chess games.

It would also be the first execution in Ohio since the end of an unofficial national moratorium on executions that began last year while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Kentucky’s lethal injection procedure.

Since the court upheld the procedure in April, 16 inmates have been executed around the country.

Attorneys for Cooey in his latest lawsuit say a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could diminish the effectiveness of the first of three drugs Ohio uses in its execution process.

Cooey’s use of the drug Topamax, a type of seizure medication, may have created a resistance to thiopental, the drug used to put inmates to sleep before two other lethal drugs are administered, Dr. Mark Heath, a physician hired by the Ohio Public Defender’s Office, said in documents filed with the court.

Heath also says Cooey’s weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anesthetized.

That’s a real concern for Cooey, his public defender, Kelly Culshaw Schneider, said Monday.

“All of the experts agree if the first drug doesn’t work, the execution is going to be excruciating,” she said.

She said the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has not indicated how they would deal with Cooey’s vein problems.

Prisons system spokeswoman Andrea Carson and Jim Gravelle, a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, both said Monday they hadn’t seen the lawsuit and couldn’t comment.

Last year, Carson cited the obesity of Newton as one of the reasons prison officials had difficulty accessing his veins before his May 24 execution. Newton was 6 feet, 265 pounds.

Two years ago, convicted killer Jeffrey Lundgren argued unsuccessfully that he was at greater risk of experiencing pain and suffering because he was overweight and diabetic.

A federal appeals court rejected the claim by Lundgren, convicted of killing a family of five in an eastern Ohio cult killing. He was executed in October 2006.

In 1999, lawyers for Florida condemned killer Allen Davis, who weighed 350 pounds, argued the voltage in the electric chair fell short of the amount needed to kill painlessly, especially for a man the size of Allen.

During Allen’s execution, blood poured from his face in what officials said was a nosebleed that happened after he died.

 



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19 Responses to “Ohio inmate says he’s too fat for execution”

  1. Bill Wallace says:

    All they have to do is start a central line on his fat a**. Well not there but in his neck or groin.

    (Report comment)

  2. Dan S. says:

    “Heath also says Cooey’s weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anesthetized.

    That’s a real concern for Cooey, his public defender, Kelly Culshaw Schneider, said Monday.”

    I’m thinking a block of concrete to the forehead to “properly anesthetize” him, perhaps?

    (Report comment)

  3. Confused says:

    I have heard everything now! First it was a lawsuit against McDonald’s for someone spilling coffee in their lap…. Then another lawsuit against McDonald’s for making people fat. This one … takes the cake?

    Well, perhaps taking the cake is the problem here. This just exacerbates the problems with the people of today.

    So, I’m on the heavy side. When vampires have to take my blood for my pregnancy bloodwork — THEY USE THE VEINS IN MY HAND!!

    AND — in case this moron doesn’t realize — these drugs, as most drugs — are calculated based on your weight. So him being fat doesn’t got squat to do with it.

    They could put him on a diet, but that would probably bring about another lawsuit that his civil rights to eat, drink and be merry were violated too.

    We live in a totally messed up society.

    (Report comment)

  4. Loving Life says:

    Sounds like he has lived pretty good at tax payers expense. They should have put him on a diet years ago. I bet his victims would have loved to live long enough to worry about their weight.

    (Report comment)

  5. ctReader says:

    See…..I’ve been telling all of you that prison is a joke. He’s been sitting in prison eating good, getting fat and playing cards with all his prison buddies.

    Cooey had his day’s in court and now it’s time his fat azz repays his debt to society and get’s punished for what he did to those innocent victims

    (Report comment)

  6. suzeqz says:

    And we care that he has excessive pain because why? Honestly, I do not even understand why this article is appearing anywhere. Did the two women he raped and killed get to say when they had enough pain…I am sure they did, but he went right on and killed them - and I doubt he thought twice about their suffering. I hope to God it is a most excruciating death.

    (Report comment)

  7. Chris says:

    How about we let his fat A** die then the same way he killed his victims?

    (( 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.))

    THAT WORKS FOR ME!!

    (Report comment)

  8. Chris says:

    As I stated in the other article…Let me clarify my position on this freak. As I stated before, I knew Dawn McQueery, one of his victims. if you aren’t familiar with this case, google it. It was sickening what he did to her and her friend. 2 innocent girls he didn’t even know. What makes me even sicker is the fact this freak of nature was 19 years old when he did this and is now 41. 22 years we have supported this piece of crap and for 22 years he has done everything to fight his sentence and won. When will her family get justice? Better yet, WHEN WILL DAWN GET JUSTICE?

    (Report comment)

  9. suzeqz says:

    Ok, I just went back and read up on…and I’ll I have to say is WTF?

    That is the devil’s work. As long as death finds him, he will get what is due to him….

    (Report comment)

  10. Loving Life says:

    I just saw him on the news. He didn’t look that fat to me.

    (Report comment)

  11. Dan S. says:

    “That is the devil’s work. As long as death finds him, he will get what is due to him….”

    That’s doubtful.

    The only payback this swine will get, is in the here and now.

    Death will be a relief.

    (Report comment)

  12. guitarheroe66 says:

    F**k this guy.

    1. Electric chair.
    2. Firing squad.
    3. Hanging.
    4. Gas Chamber.
    5. Guillotine.

    Five options. Not one would have his weight or medications as a potential factor.

    Problem solved.

    (Report comment)

  13. Dan S. says:

    Actually, in hanging they would have to carefully calculate his weight/height, to determine how much rope to use…

    …too much rope and the tub ‘o s**t’s head pops off, not enough rope and he has to “dance” for a few minutes until he’s “done.”

    Just stick the needle in.

    If they can’t find a vein, stick it into his wrist and hit that artery.

    Plus side there is, if you get someone who doesn’t now what they’re doing, like I had, it’ll hurt like a bad mamma jamma, when the needle hits that nerve bundle!

    Then they can tell him to count backwards from OUCH!!!

    (Report comment)

  14. onecuddles says:

    He was not to fat to kill. So I say kill him. Also why in the world do inmates get to play games like chess. Not to mention inmates get free education and this includes college. Prision is a punishment not a reward or is it?

    I as a tax payer would rather my money go to hard working kids that deserve it not the ones in jail/prison

    (Report comment)

  15. The Raven says:

    I’d volunteer to chain him to the back of my truck and drag him til there’s nothing left.

    That would most certainly solve the weight problem.

    I hope Loramars doesn’t read this…she’ll zap us with her astro-crap…lol

    (Report comment)

  16. aterryw says:

    if he’s that overweight make him excercise hard… that’ll kill him in his shape…. stroke, heart attack…

    (Report comment)

  17. miss_k says:

    This guy is a foul excuse for a human being. I am ashamed that my government takes consideration of his life over the lives of his victims. I am disgusted that these special interest groups run around protecting the rights of people like him. Ugh…it pains me to say that I have to share the label of “human” with people like this…

    (Report comment)

  18. doebielyn says:

    To fat, no good veins. Poor f_cking baby. I say someone should rape him, beat him & I have extra shoelaces I can send down there to strangle him to death. What has our world come to when nobody seems concerned for the POOR VICTIM. What did those poor girls suffer, they didn’t have any say or choice. Stop worrying about these murderers and if they suffer to damn bad.

    (Report comment)

  19. Chris says:

    In a way I’m glad the freak boy filed this motion, because the TV channels have been running this story to death. It is reminding the public of what he did and for the ones that didn’t know, they are finding out what he did. The feedback has been tremendous on this and all he has managed to do is p*ss people off all over again 22 years later. It sickened me to look at the freak on the same screen they were showing Dawn ( one of his victims), but it just brought it back right in his fat lap. It’s time to pay the Fiddler, sicko, you’re time is about up. I pray every day that you sat for 22 years on death row that you had flashbacks of what you did and I pray that those girls haunted you in your sleep.

    (Report comment)

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