Ohio on pace to break execution record

Ohio is on pace to break an ominous record: On Aug. 10, the state is expected to execute its 8th killer this year - a modern-day record.

By year's end, if scheduled executions are carried out, Ohio could execute 11 men.

Only the state of Texas has carried out more executions this year than Ohio, with 7. At 10 a.m. Thursday Ohio is set to execute Michael F. Beuke, 48, of West Price Hill, sentenced to death in 1983 for the aggravated murder of Robert Craig, 27. The killing occurred along Interstate 275 during a series of shootings in which news reports described the gunman as the "mad hitchhiker." Beuke seriously injured 2 other drivers who picked him up along Cincinnati-area highways.

The pace of Ohio executions has increased in recent years mostly because death row inmates' federal and state appeals are being exhausted, but also due to a change in the Ohio Constitution that eliminated a time-consuming stage in the state appeals process in 1995.

Barring a last-minute stay by the courts, Beuke will be the 5th inmate executed in Ohio this year, the 14th since Ted Strickland became governor and the 38th since executions resumed in Ohio in 1999 when Bob Taft was governor. Ohio's modern annual record is 7, in 2004.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Norbert Nadel, the judge who presided over Beuke's case, said his execution is long overdue, adding that if ever an Ohio murderer deserved the death penalty it is Beuke.

"Here we are almost 27 years later, and nothing has happened. The (death) sentence is long overdue to be carried out,'' Nadel said Wednesday. "There was never a question about his guilt.''

Amanda Wurst, a Strickland spokeswoman, would not comment on the pace other than to say, "Those are scheduled by the Ohio Supreme Court."

Strickland, a former prison psychologist, said he never counseled Beuke while working at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, where Thursday's execution will take place. He denied Beuke clemency Wednesday. The Democrat, up for re-election this year, called the review of death row clemencies his toughest task as governor.

Strickland has granted only 1 reprieve, to Jeffrey Hill of Cincinnati, last year following the recommendation of the Ohio Parole Board. Hill's death sentence was commuted to 25 years to life in prison.

Sister Alice Gerdeman, coordinator of the Cincinnati-based Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center - which will hold a vigil outside Lucasville prison today - lamented the executions.

"The fact that any state or group of people would consider killing that many people says something about our society," she said. "The crime rate is down, yet the urge to kill is up, at least in our state.''

The pace of sentencing convicted murderers to death in Ohio has slowed over the years, as public sentiment shifts and more inmates are later found innocent due to improved DNA technology and criminal justice procedures. A total of 258 Ohio killers have been sentenced to death since 1983. The most sentences - 18 - came in 1985. The least, one, came last year.

Texas has had 454 executions - or an average of 16 per year - since 1982, when that state resumed executions. The Lone Star State had 24 executions last year and is scheduled to have 17 this year.

There have been 3 executions in Kentucky since 1997 and 20 in Indiana since 1976.

Former Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery proposed the 1995 constitutional amendment to reduce the waiting time during state appeals.

That caught up to long-timers on death row like Darryl Durr, 46, of Cuyahoga County who was executed last month after 22 years in prison and Beuke, set to be executed today after 27 years in prison. Only 3 other Ohio inmates have lived on death row longer than Beuke.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, May 12, 2010

There are six more executions scheduled in Ohio in 2010:

- RICHARD NIELDS, 59, of Hamilton County, is set to be executed June 10 for the March 27, 1997, murder of his companion, 59-year-old Patricia Newsome, at their Finneytown home.

- WILLIAM GARNER, 37, of Hamilton County, is set to be executed July 13 for the murder of five children on Jan. 26, 1992.

- RODERICK DAVIE, 38, of Trumbull County, is set to be executed Aug. 10, for the 1991 murder of three co-workers two months after he was fired.

- KEVIN A. KEITH, 46, of Crawford County, is set to be executed Sept. 15 for the 1994 murder of three relatives of a drug informer. He shot three other family members, who survived.

- MICHAEL BENGE, 38, of Butler County, is set to be executed Oct. 6, for the Jan. 31, 1993, murder of his girfriend, Judith Gabbard, on the west side of the Miami River.

- SIDNEY CORNWELL, 33, of Mahoning County, is set to be executed Nov. 16, for a June 11, 1996, murder of a 3-year-old girl in Youngstown. Cornwell attempted to kill the girl's mother and two others in gang-related shootings.

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