A death row inmate scheduled to be executed Tuesday was found unconscious around 11:30 p.m. Sunday at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.
Lawrence Reynolds Jr. was found unresponsive late Sunday night. Prison officials said Reynolds took some pills despite being under a 72-hour watch — routine for inmates approaching an execution date — that includes frequent monitoring by prison guards outside the cell. Guards are supposed to keep inmates under constant observation, making log entries every 30 minutes, she said. Death row inmates have access to a recreation area and, if approved, are allowed interaction with other inmates.
Reynolds was showing signs of consciousness Monday at St. Elizabeth Hospital, but medical staff weren't prepared to release him. He was upgraded from serious to stable condition, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.
Walburn did not say what kind of pills Reynolds took or how he got them, and an investigation is under way. Reynolds' injuries were self-imposed, she said, but declined to call it a suicide attempt.
No further details about Reynolds' activities Sunday were released. Reynolds was sentenced to die for strangling his 67-year-old neighbor in her Cuyahoga Falls home to get money for alcohol. He had been scheduled to leave at 3 a.m. Monday for the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, where the state's death chamber is located.
Early Monday afternoon, a press release was issued from the office of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. In part, the release states:
“As a result of his conviction for aggravated murder, Mr. Lawrence Reynolds is scheduled to be executed on March 9, 2010 at 10 a.m. I have completed a review of the circumstances surrounding his case to determine if executive clemency is warranted.
In conducting this evaluation, my staff and I reviewed the record of proceedings and the evidence presented in Mr. Reynolds’ case, the judicial decisions regarding Mr. Reynolds’ conviction, and arguments presented for and against clemency at the Parole Board hearing regarding his application for executive clemency. We have also reviewed institutional records and letters received in the Governor’s Office regarding this matter. And we have reviewed the unanimous recommendation against clemency forwarded to me by the Ohio Parole Board on September 17, 2009, along with the exhibits presented at the Parole Board’s hearing, letters received by the Parole Board regarding Mr. Reynolds’ case, and a supplemental brief submitted to the Governor by Mr. Reynolds’ counsel after the Parole Board made its recommendation.
Based on this review, I concur with the Parole Board recommendation."
Although the governor denied Mr. Reynolds’ application for a commutation of his death sentence, Mr. Reynolds’ current medical condition has made it impossible to proceed with the scheduled execution. Based on Reynolds’ medical condition and Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Ernie L. Moore’s recommendation, the governor has issued a seven-day reprieve, postponing Mr. Reynold’s execution until Tuesday, March 16 at 10 a.m.
Reynolds had been challenging Ohio's new lethal injection procedure, which uses a one-drug system instead of three drugs. As expected, his attorneys filed an appeal Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to postpone the execution.
The Ohio public defender's office, which is representing Reynolds, declined to comment on the overdose until attorneys gathered more information, spokeswoman Amy Borror said.
This appears to be the first time since Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1999 that an inmate scheduled for execution "has been found unresponsive mere hours from being transported" to the state death chamber, Walburn said.
It's rare, but not unheard of, for condemned inmates to attempt suicide as they approach execution dates, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group opposed to capital punishment.
California has executed 13 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978 — a period during which 17 condemned inmates committed suicide.
Nine condemned inmates in Texas have committed suicide since death row reopened there in 1974. The last, William Robinson, 49, used a sheet to hang himself in his cell at a psychiatric center in February 2008.
Tuesday would have been the second time the state has tried to execute Reynolds. He was scheduled to die in October, but Strickland delayed the execution so the state could review its lethal injection procedure.
Since then, Ohio has switched from a three-drug process, which opponents said could cause severe pain, to the one-drug system. Reynolds lost a bid to have the execution delayed so he could challenge the new system when federal appeals court on Friday denied his request.
Three inmates have been executed with the state's new, one-drug new method, and in each case death came in just a few minutes. Washington last week became the second state to adopt the procedure.
