Ohio bill calls for death penalty for those who repeatedly rape kids

Ohio Death Chamber

Repeat sexual offenders who rape children could face the death penalty, under a bill the Ohio House is considering.

Rep. John Becker, a Republican from the Cincinnati area, said his House Bill 244 would give prosecutors another option when negotiating plea agreements and could help to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to allow capital punishment for heinous crimes against children.

"In light of the Ariel Castro kidnapping case of 3 young women in Cleveland, I wanted to give prosecutors the option to pursue the death penalty for repeat sexual offenders," Becker told the House's judiciary committee this week.

"... I anticipate that the death penalty would be pursued in only the most heinous crimes."

HB 244 would allow the death penalty for repeat sexual offenders convicted of aggravated rape, aggravated sexual battery and aggravated unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

Becker said the bill is modeled after laws in a half- dozen states. And 15 states allow the death penalty for crimes other than murder, such as kidnapping, aircraft hijacking and espionage.

Becker acknowledged a split U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2008 in which justices ruled that a Louisiana law allowing the death penalty for child rape was unconstitutional. But he said Ohio's passage of comparable legislation could sway the high court to conclude there was a "national consensus" in favor of executions in such cases.

"Regardless, Ohio has the opportunity to lead on this issue and prompt other states to follow," he said.

Source: The Vindicator, October 5, 2013

Report finds falsified log of prison checks on Ohio death row inmate who killed himself

Ohio Death Chamber

1 and possibly 2 prison guards apparently falsified an electronic log documenting checks on a death row inmate who committed suicide just days before his execution was to go forward, according to an Ohio prison report released Monday.

Video evidence shows prison rounds started later than indicated by the log and came in 1-hour increments instead of every half hour as ordered for that unit, the report says.

The report also says all 6 officers on death row units that night were relief officers without training specific to death row, and one of the two officers was still on probationary status.

The 9-page review does not say whether the guards, if they had followed the rules, could have prevented the Aug. 4 death row suicide of condemned killer Billy Slagle. Slagle was just minutes away from being placed on close observation that is mandatory in the 72 hours before an execution.

His Aug. 7 execution appeared on track despite the plea for mercy from the prosecutor in Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, who argued that Slagle should never have received a death sentence.

Prosecutor Tim McGinty cited Slagle's age - he was just 18 when he fatally stabbed his neighbor Mari Anne Pope - and a long history of drug and alcohol addiction. McGinty said under his office's current policy he would not have pursued a death penalty charge.

The report comes at a time of heightened awareness of prison suicides in Ohio. An inmate at Lebanon Correctional Facility in southwest Ohio committed suicide last week, just days after convicted Cleveland kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro hanged himself in his cell with a bedsheet on Sept. 3.

Slagle, 44, also died not knowing that his attorneys planned a last-minute appeal, based on evidence provided by McGinty that Slagle had been offered a plea deal before his 1988 trial but his original attorneys never informed him.

The two corrections officers named in the review have been placed on paid administrative leave as the prisons agency investigates. Someone "did falsify the electronic log book for rounds," the report said.

Messages were left with the union representing prison guards about the allegations. Slagle's attorneys said they weren't aware of the report until provided a copy by The Associated Press. They did not immediately comment on its contents.

The report also singles out lighting in death row cells, saying the cells are too dark and inmates continue to block windows with paper and other material.

Based on recommendations in the report, the prisons agency will begin relying on mental health experts to determine if the pre-execution 72-hour watch period should be lengthened for individual inmates.

Source: Associated Press, September 17, 2013

USA: Bill would expand Ohio death penalty

CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio lawmaker wants to expand the state’s death penalty law to cover some sex-related crimes in a proposal driven by the case of three women who escaped a Cleveland home after being held captive for a decade.

The proposal introduced on Friday would allow for the death penalty in cases of rape, sexual battery and improper sexual contact with a minor if the suspect has a previous sex crime conviction.

Rep. John Becker, a Republican from Clermont County near Cincinnati, said he wanted prosecutors to be able to seek the death penalty for repeat sexual offenders.

“There’s always cases out there about rapists and child molesters,” he said. “I’ve always had this opinion that for some of those people there’s no cure. They just need to be put to death.”

Becker said that he expects prosecutors would pursue the death only “in only the most heinous crimes.”

The proposal is a direct result of the case of Ariel Castro, a Cleveland man who held three women captive in his home for a decade and repeatedly raped them.

Castro was sentenced on Aug. 1 to life in prison plus 1,000 years on his guilty plea to 937 counts including kidnapping and rape.

Source: The Columbus Dispatch, August 18, 2013

Ariel Castro pleads not guilty to decade-long kidnappings in Ohio

CLEVELAND (AP) — A man accused of holding three women captive in his Cleveland home for about a decade pleaded not guilty Wednesday to hundreds of charges, including rape and kidnapping.

Ariel Castro is charged with kidnapping the three women and keeping them — sometimes restrained in chains — along with a 6-year-old girl he fathered with one of them.

Castro, 52, didn’t speak during the arraignment, which lasted less than a minute. He stood motionless, dressed in an orange prison outfit, and looked toward the floor as the plea was entered.

His attorneys planned to make a statement later Wednesday morning.

The grand jury charged Castro with two counts of aggravated murder related to one act, saying he purposely caused the unlawful termination of one of the women’s pregnancies. He also was indicted on 139 counts of rape, 177 counts of kidnapping, seven counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools.

The 142-page indictment covers only the period from August 2002, when the first victim disappeared, to February 2007. Prosecutors say the investigation will continue and they are leaving the door open to pursuing a death penalty case against Castro.

Source: AP, June 12, 2013

Ariel Castro faces 329 charges for Ohio kidnapping

CLEVELAND — Ariel Castro, 52, the former school bus driver accused of holding three women captive in his Cleveland home for a decade, was charged late Friday with murder and more than 300 counts of rape and kidnapping.

The Cuyahoga County grand jury's 329-count indictment charges Castro with one count of aggravated murder for allegedly terminating one of his captives' pregnancies, 139 counts of rape and 177 charges of kidnapping, seven counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of felony assault and one count of possession of criminal tools dating from the time of the first woman's disappearance until February 2007.

County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in a statement that the investigation is still underway. Additional charges could follow in a superseding indictment.

The indictment charges Castro as a "sexually violent predator" who committed the murder and rapes in the course of a kidnapping. Those charges are considered aggravating factors that call for stiffer penalties. The murder charge is tied to one victim's fourth pregnancy, the indictment said.

The County Prosecutor's Capital Review Committee will consider whether prosecutors should seek the death penalty if Castro is convicted. Castro, who was fired last year from his job as a school bus driver, is being held in the Cuyahoga County jail on $8 million bail. A judge will arraign Castro on the new charges next week, McGinty said.

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Source: Clarion Ledger, June 9, 2013)

Ohio prosecutors face hurdles in Ariel Castro death penalty pursuit

Ariel Castro

Experts say Ohio laws governing fetal homicides could be open to constitutional challenge as prosecutors look to press charges.

Ohio prosecutors will face a struggle to press death penalty charges against the Cleveland kidnapping suspect in relation to any miscarriages suffered by the three women he allegedly held captive for a decade, legal experts said on Friday.

If Ariel Castro is handed a death sentence for "aggravated murder", he would become the 1st person in the US to be put on death row under the country's proliferating and controversial fetal homicide laws. The provisions extend legal rights to unborn babies, in some cases - including Ohio - as early as conception.

The prosecutor for Cuyahoga County, that covers Cleveland, indicated on Thursday that he would pursue a possible death sentence against Castro, who is being held on $8m bail having been accused of kidnapping 3 young women for 9 to 11 years each. Timothy McGinty said there would be a count for "each act of aggravated murders he committed by terminating pregnancies".

The women escaped from Castro's house in the west side of Cleveland on Monday. Michelle Knight had been missing since 2002, Amanda Berry since 2003 and Gina DeJesus since 2004.

Castro has been charged with kidnapping and raping the 3 women, as well as kidnapping a 6-year-old girl born to Berry in captivity. He was confirmed as the father on Friday. Castro will now go before a grand jury, at which point prosecutors say they will press the more serious death penalty charges relating to the multiple miscarriages that took place within the house.

Ohio is 1 of at least 38 states that have some form of fetal homicide law on their statute books. In Ohio's case, protection for the fetus against violent attack has been incorporated into the state's general criminal laws since 1996, with the fetus being defined as a legal entity right from conception.

Anyone can be prosecuted in Ohio for aggravated murder - which carries the death penalty - if they are proved to have "purposely, and with prior calculation and design, caused...the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy". That could be applied to a miscarriage by any of the 3 women at any stage of pre-natal development - the law states that murder charges can be brought if an "unborn member of the species homo sapiens, who is or was carried in the womb of another" is killed.

Fetal homicide laws are controversial because they are seen by pro-abortion campaigners as a back-door attempt by anti-abortionists to overturn Roe v Wade, the US supreme court judgment that set a constitutional right to a medical termination before the fetus reaches the age of viability. Delivering that ruling, the court defined a "person" as beginning at birth.

Richard Dieter, the director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that were Castro put on death row for "aggravated murder" of a fetus, the verdict would almost certainly be open to constitutional challenge. "There is no one on death row for fetal homicide, and it raises some fundamental questions about whether a person has been killed. It may be in Ohio statute, but that doesn't make it constitutional."

Legal experts say that a decision to enhance Castro's prosecution into a capital case would pose both the prosecution and defense with large challenges. Katherine Federle, a law professor at Ohio State University, said that the prosecution would have to prove that Castro not only intended to terminate the pregnancies but also that his actions were to blame for the miscarriages - which might be hard to do where incidents occurred several years ago.

"We don't know what evidence the FBI and police have managed to assemble, so it's difficult to assess the case they will bring. But it could be quite a challenge for them to prove that the defendant was the cause of the terminations," Federle said.

Michael Benza, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who has defended several death penalty cases, said Castro's legal team would also face daunting hurdles. "In this case there is certain to be huge sympathy for these 3 young women - they have been a regular part of the public discussion in Cleveland for the past 10 years. So it's going to be hard to get the jury to go past that and pay attention just to what's happening in the courtroom."

McGinty's announcement that prosecutors may seek the death penalty is not an idle threat. Ohio has one of the highest rates of execution outside the south.

Last year, Ohio executed 3 prisoners, more than any other state outside Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma and equal to Florida. Since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the modern era in 1976, Ohio has put to death 51 prisoners; it has the 7th largest death row in the country, with 147 inmates.

Fetal homicide was incorporated into the state's homicide laws in 1996. The 1st case prosecuted under the law was that of Gregory Robbins, a member of the US air force who battered his wife causing her to lose her unborn baby.

Source: The Guardian, May 11, 2013