Death Penalty News

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-...

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 ...

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...

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. ...

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...

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 ...