Supreme Court blocks Ohio execution

AP ^ | 03/20/2007 | Erica Ryan

[Quick or Dead]

LUCASVILLE, Ohio - The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a man who had been scheduled to die Tuesday for killing a woman in 1991 and scattering her remains across two states.

Inmate Kenneth Biros — and the family of the victim, Tami Engstrom — had waited for the decision more than six hours past his 10 a.m. scheduled execution time at Ohio's death house.

The justices' one-sentence decision agreed with two lower courts that delayed the execution so he could continue arguing that Ohio's method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused earlier Tuesday to allow a hearing before the full court to consider the state's appeal.

The execution team had been waiting while the high court debated, and was ready to administer the lethal injection if the court granted the state's request to proceed with the execution.

"To put these poor people through that is just not right," defense attorney Timothy Sweeney said of Biros and his family.

[Gay State Conservative]

IIRC,this issue has been before the SCOTUS before in cases involving other states.Ohio can simply fashion its procedures exactly to what has already been approved in another state....one would think.

[crazyhorse691]

"To put these poor people through that is just not right," defense attorney Timothy Sweeney said of Biros

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So the perp now becomes the victim...the guilty become the innocent. We are just so European anymore.

[prairiebreeze]

Lethal injection is cruel and unusual?

Pretty darned cruel and unusual what he did to that woman. I say use club on the freak.

[Thebaddog]

I read on another site that he had her liver in his car.

[ElkGroveDan]

Tie him up in barbed wire then kick him down a flight of stairs into a vat of iodine. Then he'll beg for a lethal injection.

[Jaysun]

"To put these poor people through that is just not right," defense attorney Timothy Sweeney said of Biros and his family.

The decent thing to do would be to chop him up and scatter him across the country.

[spunkets]

"Tie him up in barbed wire then kick him down a flight of stairs into a vat of iodine. Then he'll beg for a lethal injection."

THat doesn't sound cruel at all, considering what he did to the woman. It is unusal though.

[ken5050]

Even though I'm in favor of the death penalty, instead of a 20-30 year period between trial and execution, with endless appeals, I'd settle for LWPP and give the millions saved from the appeals process tot he families of the victims, instead of feeding defense attys..

[Rodney King]

so he could continue arguing that Ohio's method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

What the hell? What isn't cruel and unusual? Shoot him in front of a damn firing squad, or hang him. Whatever it takes.

[Delta 21]

Surely we can get him transfered to Texas.(?)

[Gay State Conservative]

Good to see. The death penalty should be opposed more..

If the assumptions contained in my previous post prove to be correct this stay may well prove to be a short one.

[Diplomat]

Then sentence the pos to die in a court ordered humane way just like Terri Schiavo.

[YOUGOTIT]

This is stupid. He should be killed the same way he killed his victim. And it should have been done several years ago.

[mtbopfuyn]

However she died, Kenneth spared no effort in disposing of her body in grisly fashion. Her head and right breast were hacked off. Her naked torso had been eviscerated, the anus, rectum, bowels, bladder, and sex organs removed as well. Later investigators discovered Tami's intestines, black leather coat, and shoe in a swampy area near a set of railroad tracks Biros led them to. Tami's blood was all over the gravel and the tracks themselves. Most of the rest of her was found in the other dumping area, but at least part of her liver was recovered from the trunk of Biros's car.

Ok, Kenny-boy, you were fine with raping Tami and scattering her body parts all over so how about an eye-for-an-eye?

http://www.forgottenoh.com/Counties/Trumbull/biroshouse.html

[Hacksaw]

The death penalty should be opposed more, no way the government should have the power of life or death, even if the criminals is pure scum.

A jury sentences criminals to death, not the government.

[Republican Wildcat]

The headline is somewhat misleading. The Court simply refused to intervene while it was on appeal in the lower courts - it had already been blocked.

[YOUGOTIT]

"Then sentence the pos to die in a court ordered humane way just like Terri Schiavo."

I had forgotten about that and you are correct, I agree, lets bring back the humane way by starvation. Throw them in a pit like they did in the dark ages and let them get into the happy mode or whatever the left wing doctors said about how sweet it was to die of thirst.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Bring back Ol' Sparky, or the rope, or a firing squad if lethal injection is "out of bounds"...