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California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

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California is transferring everyone on death row at San Quentin prison to other places, as it tries to reinvent the state's most notorious facility as a rehabilitation centre. Many in this group will now have new freedoms. But they are also asking why they've been excluded from the reform - and whether they'll be safe in new prisons. Keith Doolin still remembers the day in 2019 when workers came to dismantle one of the United States' most infamous death chambers.

Ohio: Lawrence Reynolds Jr., who attempted suicide, arrives at Lucasville for execution

Convicted killer Lawrence Reynolds, whose suicide attempt postponed his execution for a week, arrived at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville shortly after 10 a.m. today.

Reynolds, 43, was transported to the Lucasville prison, where executions take place, from the Ohio State Penitentiary, a trip of about 250 miles.

He is scheduled for execution at 10 a.m. Tuesday for the Jan. 11, 1994, strangulation and beating death of Loretta Foster, 64, his Akron neighbor.

On March 7, Reynolds tried to kill himself with an overdose of a prescription pills. He was hospitalized after being found unconscious in his cell, but was treated and returned to prison within 48 hours.

An investigation is under way into how Reynolds, while under an around-the-clock watch on Death Row at the state's maximum-security prison, obtained drugs sufficient to cause an overdose.

His suicide attempt prompted Gov. Ted Strickland to use his executive clemency power to grant a one-week reprieve.

Reynolds would be the third Ohioan to be executed this year and the 36th since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. Another seven executions are scheduled for the remainder of the year.

Source: THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, Monday, March 15, 2010


Ohio will try for 3rd time to execute inmate

The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether to delay the execution of an Ohio inmate challenging the state's lethal injection procedure and who last week overdosed on pills in a suicide attempt.

Lawrence Reynolds Jr. was convicted of strangling his 67-year-old neighbor in 1994 in Cuyahoga Falls.

His attorneys are asking the Supreme Court for more to time to make their case that Ohio hasn't corrected problems with accessing inmates' veins before a new single-drug method of lethal injection is used.

The 43-year-old Reynolds is being closely monitored as the state on Tuesday will try for a 3rd time to execute him. Reynolds was to have been executed last week but was found unconscious in his cell and hospitalized. His original execution date was postponed last fall while the state reviewed its execution procedure.

Source: Associated Press, March 15, 2010

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