YOUR CITY :: INMATE says he’s to FAT to be EXECUTED
COLUMBUS, Ohio —
A death row inmate scheduled for execution in October says he’s so fat that Ohio executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.
Lawyers for Richard Cooey argue in a federal lawsuit that Cooey had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and that the problem has been worsened by weight gain.
Cooey, 41, was sentenced to die for raping and murdering two female University of Akron students in 1986. After a federal judge granted Cooey a last-minute reprieve in 2003, Cooey was returned to death row. In April, he lost a challenge to Ohio’s lethal injection process when the U.S. Supreme Court said he had missed a deadline to file a lawsuit.
Cooey’s attorneys cite a document filed by a prison nurse in 2003 that said Cooey had sparse veins and that executioners would need extra time.
“When you start the IV’s come 15 minutes early,” wrote the nurse who examined Cooey. “I don’t have any veins.”
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