One death row inmate currently in jail for the 1983 murder by shooting of a hotel desk clerk has tried to argue once more than he’s too obese to die, and has been turned down for failing to provide sufficient evidence to back his claim.
Ronald Post is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in January, with a judge ruling earlier this week that his claim that his weight should justify a delay of the execution is unfounded,
The Huffington Post reports.
Basically, Post and his attorney tried to challenge the execution on the grounds that, being obese (he weighs over 400 pounds / 181.4 kg) would mean he would experience severe pain when given the lethal injection.
A judge ruled that he’d made the same claim in 1997 and, more importantly, that his condition has not changed ever since.
In response, Post’s attorney said that his client tried to lose the extra weight but failed because he could not exercise because of back and knee pains.
The lawyer also pointed out that Post’s request to have a gastric band fitted had been denied, and this too considerably diminished his chances of losing the extra weight.
Moreover, doctors brought in to testify said that, because of his weight, he had no accessible veins through which the lethal injection could be administered.
“Post is prohibited from challenging his execution by injection because he raised similar claims in his first set of federal appeals in 1997, Judge Lesley Wells said Monday in Cleveland,” The Huffington Post reports.
“[Post] has not demonstrated in his new petition that his medical condition has changed so significantly, or that Ohio's new lethal injection procedures have changed so radically, since he filed his first petition in 1997 that his original core complaints are transformed into something new,” the judge said, as cited by the same media outlet.
A new hearing in the case has been scheduled for December 17, when a federal appeals court in Cincinnati will issue a final determination in the case, which is standard procedure in these situations.
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