American society has reached a point in our history in which government has lost common sense.
A 400-lb. morbidly obese death-row inmate in Ohio is deemed too fat to be executed.
Ronald Post (Good grief, is he wearing lipstick?)
Cora Van Olson reports for Crime Library that 53-year-old Ronald Post, sentenced to death for killing Helen Vantz by gunshot in 1983, is scheduled to be executed January 16, 2013.
But in a court filing, Ohio State medical center anesthesiologist Sergio Bergese said Post is “too fat” to receive lethal injection in his veins. The killer is so obese, he does not have accessible veins in his arms, hands or legs for the insertion of an IV to administer the lethal dosage. Post also has scars on his left and right forearms from a suicide attempt that make his veins inaccessible for an IV, Bergese added.
Post says his depression and scar tissue would also make it difficult for his executioners to administer a lethal injection. He now wants a federal judge to stop his execution on the grounds his weight could cause him to suffer severe pain during the procedure.
Post’s attorney argues that, “given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death.”
Post had received the death penalty in 1985 for murdering 53-year-old Helen Vantz on Dec. 15, 1983. Vantz was the desk clerk at the Slumber Inn hotel in Elyria, Ohio. Post shot Vantz twice in the back of the head and stole various items, including a bank deposit bag of money and the victim’s purse.
Bill Vantz, the son of Helen, calls Post’s arguments “laughable”.
In 2009, after two hours and 18 punctures, Romell Broom was allowed to have his execution postponed. Broom is currently incarcerated in Ohio’s Chillicothe Correctional Institution.
In 1994 Washington State death row inmate Mitchell Rupe convinced a court that at over 400 pounds, he was too heavy to be executed by hanging, the only method of execution available in that state at the time, saying that the noose would wind up decapitating him. The courts eventually allowed Rupe to live out his life behind prison walls where he died in 2006.
H/t Daily Mail.
~Eowyn
