Daniel Wilson

[thinkinkmesa]

Daniel Wilson is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, June 3, 2009.

Daniel Wilson's clemency hearing is scheduled for April 30th in Columbus. Please send emails or letters asking that clemency be granted.
You must include his name and institution number when emailing on his behalf. Speaking points can be found below.

Daniel Wilson, #A260-074.
Send emails to the Chair of the Parole Board, Cynthia Mausser.
[e-mail]

Send emails to the general information email
[e-mail] and they would forward it to the parole board.

Petition to Commute the Death Sentence of Daniel Wilson
Please, also take the following actions.

Online version can be found here;
www.petitiononline.com/DWilson/petition.html

Printable version can be found on this page;
www.enddeathpenaltyforbretthartmann.com/deathpenalty.html

In addition to signing the petition, we urge you to send Governor Strickland your own personal message and offer this link to his contact page;
apps.das.ohio.gov/govpublic/contact.aspx


In March of 1992, Mr. Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death for the May 4, 1991 murder of Carol Lutz.
Several factors in Mr. Wilson’s case history merit executive clemency, principally that the trial court’s explanation of the case’s sole death sentence specification to the trial jury was ruled to be constitutionally erroneous and invalid by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (No. 03-3362 Wilson v. Mitchell, August 15, 2007).
The erroneous trial court instruction allowed the jury to consider the death sentence while being improperly instructed how to consider and weigh the evidence in mitigation when considering the death penalty specification. Wilson is the only person on Ohio ’s Death Row that has not had a jury weigh a valid death sentence specification.
Other mitigating factors include Daniel’s remarkably abusive childhood, his expression of deep regret for and acceptance of responsibility for the pain he caused, and his successful efforts to become a “positive and productive” member of the Ohio prison population as demonstrated by his serving as legal typist and librarian in the death row library as well as a GED tutor.

If you know of people that would prefer to send regular mail letters or make phone calls, please pass on this information for their use.

Ted Strickland
Governor's Office
Riffe Center, 30th Floor
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-6108
[phone]

Cynthia Mausser
Chair of Parole Board
770 West Broad Street
Columbus, OH 43222
[phone], ext. 2
or
[phone]

(cross post)

[thinkinkmesa]

Killer’s attorneys seek resentencing

ELYRIA — Prosecutors say convicted killer Daniel Wilson has exhausted
his appeals for killing an Amherst woman in 1991 by burning her alive
and have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date.

But attorneys for Wilson, 39, argue that Wilson’s death sentence
imposed in 1992 by former Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Lynett
McGough was improper and that he should be given a new sentencing
hearing.

Instead of a death sentence, defense attorneys Alan Rossman and David
Doughton contend Wilson should be sentenced to life in prison. He
should be eligible for parole after serving either 20 or 30 years of
his sentence, according to the attorneys.

Wilson never denied he was responsible for killing Carol Lutz by
locking her in the trunk of her car, puncturing the gas tank and
setting the car ablaze on May 4, 1991, according to court documents.

“Wilson then walked away, allowing Carol Lutz to be baked alive,”
Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will and Assistant County Prosecutor
Billie Jo Belcher wrote in the request asking the Ohio Supreme Court
to allow Wilson’s execution to move forward.

During his 1992 trial, Wilson’s attorneys argued that he shouldn’t
receive the death penalty because he was drunk at the time of the
killing. He ultimately was convicted of aggravated murder, kidnapping
and aggravated arson, according to court documents.

Because the jury that recommended the death penalty wasn’t properly
instructed about how to handle Wilson’s drunkenness defense, Rossman
and Doughton argue the death sentence should be overturned.

The issue already has been fought over in the federal court system,
with Wilson winning the argument that the jury instructions were
improper. But the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals determined the
error wasn’t severe enough to overturn his sentence. The U.S. Supreme
Court refused to hear Wilson’s appeal of that decision.

That prompted Wilson’s attorneys to ask McGough’s successor, county
Common Pleas Judge James Burge, for a new sentencing hearing, a move
prosecutors described as “frivolous.”

Wilson’s attorneys, however, argue that Burge should be the one to
fix the mistake.

“A trial court always has jurisdiction to correct an illegal
sentence,” Wilson’s attorneys wrote.

Burge, a former defense attorney, has earned a reputation for
controversial decisions that have rankled prosecutors since he took
the bench almost two years ago, including his decision to review how
the state carries out lethal injections earlier this year.

Prosecutors have routinely complained that Burge has a bias against
the death penalty, pointing to his representation of James Filiaggi,
a Lorain County man who was executed last year for the 1994 murder of
his wife.

Burge remained in contact with Filiaggi after his conviction and
visited with him in the death house before the execution. That
association, along with his ruling on the death penalty, prompted
prosecutors to try to have Burge removed from a three-judge panel in
the case of Manuel Nieves, a move that failed.

Burge and two other judges found Nieves guilty of most of the charges
against him, but spared him the death penalty.

Ohio resumed executions earlier this month after a year-long
moratorium imposed while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a challenge
to Kentucky’s lethal injection process, which is similar to Ohio’s.

Richard Cooey, one of two men convicted of the 1986 murders of North
Ridgeville native Dawn McCreery and Wendy Offredo, both sorority
sisters from the University of Akron, was executed Oct. 14.
www.chroniclet.com/2008/10/30/killers-attorneys-seek-resentencing_122

[thinkinkmesa]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The Ohio Supreme Court has set an execution date for a man who kidnapped a female friend, locked her in the trunk of his car and burned her alive.

The court on Wednesday scheduled the execution of Daniel Wilson of Lorain County for June 3.

Authorities say the 39-year-old Wilson offered a ride home from an Elyria bar to a friend, 24-year-old Carol Lutz, in May 1991.

Wilson locked her in the trunk of her car, punctured the car's gas tank, stuffed a rag into the tank and set the car on fire, killing Lutz.

The execution is the third the court has scheduled this year as Ohio picks up the pace of executions following an unofficial moratorium last year.

That delay came as the U.S. Supreme Court debated the constitutionality of lethal injection, ultimately upholding the practice in an April ruling.
www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared....ghZTaR4HA .cspx

[thinkinkmesa]

Ohio Supreme Court: Wilson execution a go
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram
March 13, 2009
The Ohio Supreme Court rejected convicted killer Daniel Wilson’s
request for a stay of execution.

Attorneys for Wilson, who is set to be executed June 3 for the 1992
slaying of Carol Lutz, had asked for a delay while he pursues his
efforts to win a new sentencing hearing from Lorain County Common
Pleas Judge James Burge.

County prosecutors have called Wilson’s efforts “frivolous.” Wilson
is arguing that because of an error in how the jury was instructed
during his trial that he deserves to be resentenced.

Wilson, 39, has never denied that he killed Lutz by locking her in
the trunk of her car in Elyria, puncturing the gas tank and settling
the car on fire. His defense during his trial was that he was drunk
at the time.

Wilson’s attorneys want him to receive life in prison instead of the
death penalty.

www.chroniclet.com/2009/03/13/ohi....ution-a-go_122/

[thinkinkmesa]

Appeals court refuses to delay execution of Daniel Wilson
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram
March 14, 2009

Daniel Wilson still has a date with the executioner’s needle on June 3.
The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday rejected the convicted killer’s
request to delay his execution while he fights his death sentence in
a Lorain County court. The justices did not explain their decision.

Attorneys for Wilson, 39, want to give Lorain County Common Pleas
Judge James Burge a chance to review their argument that their client
is entitled to a new sentencing hearing because of an error in how
jurors were instructed during his 1992 trial.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the jurors weren’t
properly instructed on how to handle Wilson’s drunkenness defense
during the trial. But the appeals court also found that it was a
harmless error that didn’t justify throwing out Wilson’s death sentence.

Wilson was sentenced to death after he was convicted of locking Carol
Lutz in the trunk of her car in Elyria, puncturing the gas tank and
setting the car ablaze May 4, 1991.

Wilson has never denied killing Lutz, and his attorneys want him to
receive a life prison sentence if they can convince Burge to throw
out the death sentence.

Prosecutors have scoffed at Wilson’s arguments, calling them
frivolous, and have been pushing the Supreme Court to move forward
with Wilson’s execution because his appeals are exhausted.

Burge has yet to rule on Wilson’s request and has a hearing to gather
more information set for later this month.

Prosecutors have criticized Burge for his controversial decision last
year declaring that the current three-drug thingytail used in Ohio
executions carried a risk that the condemned inmate would die painfully.

Burge instead ordered the state to use only a massive dose of a
sedative to execute the accused killers if they are convicted.

Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will and attorneys for Wilson did not
return calls seeking comment.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet. com

www.chroniclet.com/2009/03/14/app....iel-wilson_122/

[thinkinkmesa]

Burge declines to halt Wilson’s execution
Cindy Leise | The Chronicle-Telegram

ELYRIA — A judge refused Tuesday to overturn a death sentence for 39-
year-old Daniel E. Wilson despite an error in jury instructions by
another judge, saying that jurors would have come to the same
conclusion when determining whether Wilson should die for setting
fire to a car with a woman in the trunk.

Common Pleas Court Judge James Burge rejected the arguments of
Wilson’s lawyers, who maintained that Wilson’s sentence should be
reduced to life in prison because the judge who handled his trial,
Common Pleas Court Judge Lynett McGough, failed to properly instruct
the jury on how to weigh whether Wilson was intoxicated when he
killed Carol Lutz, 24.

Burge said that Wilson had not had an alcoholic beverage for 10 or 11
hours before Lutz was burned alive in the trunk of her Oldsmobile in
the parking lot of Northwood Junior High School in Elyria.

Wilson, who was 21 at the time, confessed to killing Lutz to avoid
detection, and “no reasonable juror could have concluded (Wilson) was
intoxicated at the time he closed the trunk of Lutz’s vehicle,” Burge
ruled.

Instead, the Ohio Supreme Court — which found McGough’s instructions
to be in error but deemed the error harmless — found that Wilson
“clearly knew what he was doing,” according to Burge’s ruling.

Lutz’s parents, Jerry and Martha Lutz, attended the hearing Tuesday,
but quickly left the courtroom after the judge issued his ruling.

A victims’ advocate said they did not wish to speak with reporters.

During the hearing, Assistant County Prosecutor Billie Jo Belcher
told Burge that the same arguments had been presented to the Ohio
Supreme Court, which refused to issue a stay for Wilson’s execution
date, which is set for June 3. Another Assistant County Prosecutor,
Anthony Cillo, said that Wilson’s attorneys failed to show that there
would have been another verdict other than death had the jury been
given the proper instruction.

Afterward, Wilson’s attorneys, David Doughten and Alan Rossman, said
they were not disappointed. Instead, they said they were pleased that
Burge issued an immediate ruling because they can appeal to the Ninth
District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court.

“Time is of the essence,” Doughten said, adding that Wilson has
exhausted his federal appeals.

Doughten and Rossman contend that the earlier mistake in jury
instructions should be cause to overturn Wilson’s sentence and that
he should receive life in prison with parole eligibility in 20 years.
He cannot be put to death, they maintain, because Ohio law requires
the same jury that determined guilt to determine the appropriate
sentence.

Wilson was not transferred from death row at the Ohio State
Penitentiary in Youngstown for the hearing, but Doughten said he was
“hopeful and understands the arguments” being made on his behalf.

In addition to the ongoing appeals, on April 30, there’ll be a death
penalty clemency hearing for Wilson before the Ohio Parole Board,
according to spokeswoman Jo Ellen Culp. The parole board would then
make a recommendation to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

Wilson’s execution is the third the Ohio Supreme Court has scheduled
this year following an unofficial moratorium last year while the U.S.
Supreme Court reviewed a challenge to Kentucky’s lethal injection
process, which is similar to Ohio’s.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet. com

www.chroniclet.com/2009/03/25/bur....%99s-execution/

[thinkinkmesa]

Convicted killer Wilson gets no support at hearing
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram
May 1, 2009
COLUMBUS — No one appeared to speak on Daniel Wilson’s behalf at the
convicted killer’s clemency hearing Thursday before the Ohio Parole
Board.

But the family of Carol Lutz — the woman he locked in the trunk of
her 1986 Oldsmobile and set ablaze in 1991, killing her — had a lot
to say as they urged the Parole Board to reject mercy for Wilson and
allow him to be executed June 3.

“In 1991, Daniel Wilson murdered our daughter. He took her life and
walked away like nothing ever happened,’’ Carol Lutz’s father, Jerry
Lutz, said as he held a handwritten statement in his shaking hand.

Jerry Lutz said Wilson, who was convicted and sentenced to death in
1992, was a killer and would kill again if given the chance.

“Daniel Wilson wants people to feel sorry for him. Well, I don’t,’’
he said.

Carol Lutz’s brother, Doug Lutz, said Wilson may claim remorse, but
he doesn’t believe it to be genuine.

And Carol Lutz’s mother, Martha Lutz, said her daughter was a
wonderful and loving person who could have had a life and even
children. All that disappeared, she said, when Wilson, then 21,
killed her.

“She begged for her life, and he walked away like it was nothing,’’
Martha Lutz said.

Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will said Wilson, who confessed to
the killing, but didn’t provide police with all the details they
wanted, committed a horrible crime.

He said Carol Lutz and Wilson met at the Empire Tavern on May 3,
1991, and left within a few minutes of each other as the bar was
closing. That was the last time anyone, besides Wilson, ever saw her
alive, Will said.

Prosecutors say after they left, Wilson locked Lutz in the trunk of
her own car.

Wilson, who contends he was drunk at the time, told police he drove
around, making several stops, including at a gas station in Stow,
where he showed off Lutz’s car as his new automobile, Will said.

Finally the pair ended up at Northwood Junior High School, and Wilson
told police he let Lutz use the bathroom before the pair talked for
about 20 minutes with her asking him to let her go. She promised to
forget the whole thing, Will said.

Wilson told police that he even gave Lutz a cigarette as they talked.
Then he closed the trunk with her inside, punctured the gas tank,
stuffed a rag in the tank and lit it on fire before walking away.

Lutz, Will said, died of suffocation, and her body was severely
burned by the time Elyria firefighters put the blaze out and found
her in the trunk. The temperature inside the trunk could have reached
700 degrees, he said.

“I can’t think of a more horrible death, a more terrifying death than
that of Carol Lutz,’’ Will told the Parole Board.

And Lutz wasn’t the first person Daniel Wilson, now 39, killed, Will
said.

When Wilson was 14, Will said, he killed a neighbor during a break-
in. Wilson beat 81-year-old Frank Cebula with a drawer from a
credenza and a candlestick and left him in his home, but not before
he ripped the phone out of the wall so Cebula couldn’t call for help,
Will said.

Cebula died in the hospital six days later from complications of the
attack, which left him with a broken hip, Will said.

As with the killing of Lutz, Will said, Wilson admitted his
involvement in Cebula’s death but didn’t tell the full truth about
what happened.

“He’s going to try to minimize,” Will said.

Wilson ultimately was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Lorain
County Juvenile Court and sent to the Ohio Department of Youth Services.

Just two weeks before he killed Lutz, Will said Wilson had asked for
his juvenile record to be expunged, telling a judge that he was
looking forward to moving on from past mistakes.

In addition, Will said Lutz may not have been the only woman Wilson
killed.

He said police around the Greater Cleveland area considered Wilson a
suspect in the deaths of three other women in the months leading up
to the death of Lutz.

In late 1990, the bodies of Elaine Graham and Jean Eddy were found
burned in their cars, Graham in Geauga County and Eddy, in Huron County.

Will said Wilson was also a suspect in the death of Rachael Johnson,
who was beaten, raped and stabbed to death before her body was dumped
on an Akron street and set ablaze on March 30, 1990.

Eddy’s death was ruled a suicide, but the two others were never
solved and Wilson denied involvement in any of the deaths, Will said.

Wilson’s lawyers have been fighting to keep their client alive, but
although a federal appeals court decision that found the jury was
improperly instructed on how to handle Wilson’s drunkenness defense,
the appeals court found that the mistake wouldn’t have made a
difference.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge refused last month to
grant Wilson a new sentencing hearing and Wilson’s lawyers, who want
him to receive a life prison term instead of lethal injection, have
appealed that decision.

Parole Board Chairwoman Cynthia Mausser said Thursday that the board
will send its recommendation on clemency to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland
on May 8.

Jerry Lutz said Wilson, who was not at the hearing, shouldn’t receive
any mercy.

“He does not deserve clemency,” he told the Parole Board. “He never
even said he was sorry.”

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet. com

www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/01/convicted-killer-wilson-gets-no-support-at-hearing/

[thinkinkmesa]

Received in an email today;

Today the Ohio Parole Board submitted their report to Governor Strickland with a recommendation of 8-0 FOR execution of Daniel Wilson.

Now is the time to stop sending emails to the Clemency Board.

PLEASE send lots of emails to:
Governor Strickland [e-mail]
AND
Jose Torres [e-mail]

The talking points to address in your emails:

* Dan deserves mercy because he is a changed person

* The Parole Board did not get past the facts of the crime and only gave a small consideration to the mitigating factors

* The Board is stacked against all inmates

* The Board acts like they are judge, jury and executioner

Please get these emails out soon and often!

(I'm not Daniels main support, so if you have any questions just let me know and I can provide an email addy.)

[thinkinkmesa]

Message we received by email;

Dear Abolitionists~~~

As an abolitionist, I oppose all death sentences. I don't pick and choose the ones that I will support in signing petitions or submit action emails to Governors. Every life is important. I am a mother and I choose LIFE!!

Daniel Wilson #A260-074 is scheduled for execution on June 3 in Ohio and he desperately needs our support in trying to save his life. This weekend as I have been reading the clemency report (May 8, 2009) and news articles regarding this case, I have several things that people could address in emails to Governor Strickland [e-mail] and Jose Torres [e-mail]. Because ultimately Governor Strickland has the decision to determine whether Daniel lives or dies.

I am providing the links to the Parole Board's clemency report and the latest two Chronicle Telegram articles regarding Dan's case. www.drc.state.oh.us/Public/wilson_clemency.pdf

www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/convicted-killer-set-to-die-for-murder-of-carol-lutz/

www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/board-doesn%e2%80%99t-back-clemency-for-killer-daniel-wilson/

When you read the clemency report, consider these items:
1-- The childhood abuse that was reported is only a small fraction of what he suffered. Yet the Parole Board only felt the need to address this in less than one page of a 15 page report.

2-- When the Parole Board talks about the issue with the death specification (page 10), it says that there were three specifications. That is true. However, what they did not say was when the Prosecutor only went forward with the one spec, the other two were waived. The courts and the parole board can not bring these back now. So, with the sole death spec considered invalid, Dan is no longer eligible for the death penalty according to Ohio laws. If Dan is executed on June 3, the state of Ohio has just committed MURDER!!

3-- Alcoholism is a large issue with this case, yet there were no questions in the 1 hour, 45 minute interview about alcohol, alcoholism and blackouts. Nor was there much mention in the clemency report, except an indication that he was sober at the time of the crime. I don't know how someone can be considered sober in a few hours after 15 hours of drinking??

4-- When the Parole Board mentions the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors (page 11), they are using the legal standard, a much higher standard, than what clemency is supposed to be.

5-- Although there is no mention of Prosecutor Will's remarks from the clemency hearing about Dan's possible involvement with 3 other cases at the time, it is believed that this was an attempt to incite the Board. The incomplete information is just now coming to light with recent news reports.

6-- You can read other clemency reports and see that Ohio's Parole Board has a history of not getting beyond the facts of the crime, not looking at the changed person since the crime and considering everything to grant mercy. The Governor needs to know that this system of clemency is not working.

Dan has 22 days before he is put in the Death House. He is now clean and sober, 1000 times better than the drunk, disoriented and chaotic 21 year old in 1991. If you read the reports and news articles, you are only getting a small view of what life he had. Just imagine what it would be like for your family, your son, your friend.

My Mother's Day request is simple -- Please choose life! Choose life EVERYDAY with conviction!

Governor Strickland needs to know and hear, strongly, loudly and continually that WE who choose life are here -- speaking to him.

Show you choose life by:
* signing the online petition www.petitiononline.com/DWilson/petition.html. At this time there are only 209 signatures. I know there are 100s even 1000s more people out there that oppose the death penalty.

* emailing Governor Strickland and Jose Torres

* phoning Governor Strickland [phone]

Thank you all for fighting this fight against the death penalty - one case at a time!!

Blessings to all mothers on this special day for you.

Regards,
Daphne Miller
Abolitionist since 2005

[thinkinkmesa]

Court dismisses Wilson lawsuit: Move upholds constitutionality of Ohio's
lethal injection protocol
By JEFF GREEN | jgreen@MorningJourn al.com

COLUMBUS - A federal court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit brought by
convicted
murderer Daniel Wilson challenging the constitutionality of Ohio's lethal
injection protocol.

Wilson, 39, of Elyria, is scheduled to be executed on June 3. He was
convicted
of kidnapping and killing Carol Lutz, whom he met in a bar and later burned
to
death in the trunk of her car.

Wilson had sued Gov. Ted Strickland and the Department of Corrections,
arguing
the lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. If the drugs
are improperly administered, then the state's three-drug cocktail carries a
significant risk of causing excruciating pain, the suit states.

The U.S. District Court Judge Gregory L. Frost dismissed the suit without
comment yesterday. The same suit was brought by Richard Cooey and also was
dismissed. Cooey raped and murdered Dan McCreery, 20, of North Ridgeville,
and
her friend Wendy Offredo, 21, of Bath Township, and was executed Oct. 14
last
year.

Federal Public Defender Alan Rossman, one of Wilson's attorneys, said they
will appeal the decision to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Wilson's
attorneys are also arguing he should be resentenced to life in prison
because
of an instruction read to his jury that has been ruled unconstitutional,
which
they said may have had a negative impact on the jury's verdict.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge denied Wilson a resentencing on
March 24, and Wilson's attorneys have appealed the ruling with the 9th
District Court of Appeals.

County Prosecutor Dennis Will has said the jury instruction issue has been
litigated and has no merit.

Wilson has requested clemency from Gov. Strickland but he has not yet made a
decision. The state parole board has recommended that he deny clemency.

Authorities say Wilson took Lutz, 24, from a bar and held her hostage in the
trunk of her car. He parked the car behind Northwood Junior High in Elyria
in
May 1991, soaked a blanket in gasoline, set it on fire and tossed it in the
car, which burned, killing Lutz.
www.morningjournal.com/articles/2009/05/14/news/mj1041447.txt

[thinkinkmesa]

Board doesn’t back clemency for killer Daniel Wilson
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

Convicted killer Daniel Wilson received sympathy but no mercy from the Ohio Parole Board, which has unanimously recommended that Gov. Ted Strickland reject Wilson’s clemency request.

Wilson, 39, is scheduled to be executed June 3 for the May 4, 1991, murder of Carol Lutz.

In its clemency report released Friday, Parole Board members wrote that they were sympathetic to Wilson’s childhood in which he was abandoned by his mother to live with an alcoholic and abusive father.

Wilson’s father would lock Wilson and his brothers in their bedroom and forbid them from using the restroom for hours as well as beating, berating and handcuffing them to chairs, Wilson’s brother David Wilson said in a DVD sent to Strickland’s office.

But Wilson’s troubled childhood and his own abuse of alcohol didn’t outweigh the crime he committed, the Parole Board concluded.

The report said Wilson carefully considered his options.

“After this lengthy consideration, Mr. Wilson chose to take the victim’s life,” the report said.

Wilson kidnapped Lutz after they had been drinking together at the Empire Bar in Elyria and kept her locked in the trunk of her own car as he drove around the greater Cleveland area, stopping at one point to talk to a gas station worker he knew in the Akron area for 1½ hours.

Wilson told the Parole Board he didn’t remember how Lutz got in the trunk of the car because he was drunk at the time. He also said that Lutz pleaded with him to release her.

Instead, Wilson tried twice to light the car on fire. His first effort, when shoving a rag in the gas tank, failed.

The second time, Wilson said he punctured the gas tank and let it leak onto a towel or blanket and the set the car ablaze in the parking lot of Northwood Junior High School with Lutz still alive in the trunk.

“He was asked what he did next. He responded that he walked away and never looked back,” the report said of the Parole Board’s interview with Wilson.

Wilson had asked for mercy during an April 17 interview with the Parole Board.

In a written statement that Wilson read to the board that was part of the report released Friday, he said he was sorry for killing both Lutz and Frank Cebula, an 81-year-old neighbor Wilson beat and left lying injured in Cebula’s home. Cebula died six days later, and Wilson, then 14, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

“I know that they won’t accept or believe me, but I would like both families to know how truly sorry I am for the pain that I caused them and for taking Carol and Frank from them,” Wilson wrote.

Wilson said — and the Parole Board agreed — that he has been a model prisoner, working as a GED tutor and typist for fellow prisoners while on death row.

Wilson asked the board that he be allowed to serve a life prison sentence instead of being executed.

“I ask that you have mercy on the man that I am now and not vengeance on the man I was 18 years ago,” he wrote.

At the Parole Board clemency hearing last month, Lutz’s family said they had no sympathy for Wilson and asked that he be executed as planned. They also said they didn’t believe that Wilson was truly sorry.

Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will said he was pleased with the Parole Board’s decision. He said Wilson’s sentence should be carried out.

“I didn’t hear any reason for them to even consider clemency, so I don’t see any reason to change the sentence that has been assessed,” Will said Friday.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Vicki Werneke, one of Wilson’s attorneys, said Wilson and his lawyers were disappointed by the board’s decision but not surprised.

She said Wilson’s legal team still hopes to meet with Strickland to push for clemency before the governor makes his decision.

Meanwhile Wilson has appeals pending in both federal and state courts.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/board-doesn%E2%80%99t-back-clemency-for-killer-daniel-wilson/

[thinkinkmesa]

Wilson sends evidence of abuse to governor
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

CLEVELAND — In a 90-minute video sent to Gov. Ted Strickland, Daniel Wilson’s supporters laid out the convicted killer’s hellish childhood and pleaded with Strickland to commute Wilson’s death sentence to life in prison.

Strickland has not yet decided whether he’ll stop Wilson’s execution, which is scheduled for June 3.

Wilson, now 39, killed Carol Lutz by locking her in the trunk of her car, puncturing the gas tank and setting the car ablaze in the parking lot of Elyria’s Northwood Junior High School on May 4, 1991.

Lisa Roth, a death penalty mitigation expert who worked on Wilson’s trial, said Wilson’s childhood was horrible.

“His family was like growing up in a concentration camp,” Roth said in the video.

Wilson’s younger brother, David Wilson, said their father, Donald Wilson Sr., was an alcoholic who regularly beat and verbally abused his three boys.

He said their father would whip the boys with belts and hit them for real and imagined offenses. He would come home drunk, wake the boys and tear apart their rooms and then force them to clean them, David Wilson said.

David Wilson recalled one instance in which, when their father couldn’t find the family camera, made the three boys bend over and remain in that position while he went upstairs to have a beer.

When he came back downstairs, he savagely beat the boys, David Wilson said. Because they weren’t allowed to speak, he said, none of them pointed out that the camera was three feet away on top of the dryer.

Eventually, the Wilson boys’ mother, whom David Wilson said his father also beat, fled the marriage, but took only her oldest son, Donald Wilson Jr., with her.

She left Daniel Wilson and himself behind, David Wilson said.

He said Daniel Wilson endured the majority of the beatings because he was his father’s “favorite” and his brothers allowed him take the blame for many of the things that angered their father, who died in 1992 at the age of 47.

“Dan took beatings for us without complaint,” he said.

David Wilson said his father may have actually believed the abuse, which included calling Daniel Wilson “Superpiss” because he wet the bed until he was in his early teens, was good for the boy.

“I think my dad thought he was making Dan a strong person,” he said.

Vicki Werneke, an assistant federal public defender working on Wilson’s case, said after reviewing the video with The Chronicle-Telegram that it didn’t surprise her that Daniel Wilson was one to end up on death row despite their shared history of abuse among the brothers.

“Danny was the scapegoat,” she said. “He was the one taking the brunt of it.”

Roth said Daniel Wilson’s childhood made him an alcoholic and worse.

“If you had a book on how to ruin a human being, his father certainly could have written it,” she said.

David Wilson also said that his brother would take care of him and steal money and food so the boys could survive.

Roselyn Bankson, a retired special education teacher who knew Daniel Wilson while he was in middle school, said in the video that Wilson was trying to provide for his younger brother when he broke into a neighbor’s home.

Wilson beat the neighbor, 81-year-old Frank Cebula and left him lying in the house after ripping the phone out of the wall. Cebula died from complications from his injuries six days later and Wilson, then 14, served time in a state youth detention home for involuntary manslaughter.

Bankson blamed Wilson’s parents and all those who may have known he was being abused for not taking steps to protect him from his father’s wrath. She said she had no idea why Wilson would hang around after school or that he was being abused.

“I know now he had been afraid to go home,” she said.

Wilson’s supporters, including a first cousin, who has asked not to be identified, said in the video that Wilson followed his father down the road of alcoholism.

The night Wilson met Lutz at the Empire Tavern and he kidnapped her, the cousin said he encountered a very drunk Wilson and watched him pound more beers. He said Wilson had just broken up with his girlfriend and was drunker than he had ever seen him,

“He was at the point where he seemed like he didn’t care anymore,” he said.

The cousin said in the video that Wilson had asked him to come over to spend the night and talk, but the cousin, who was 15 at the time, said his father wouldn’t let him.

He said Wilson told him to sneak out and meet him around midnight when they parted ways or he was going to the Empire Tavern for a few more drinks. The cousin, choking back tears, said he fell asleep and awoke at 2 a.m. and realized he’d missed his meeting with Wilson.

During Wilson’s trial, his defense team argued that he was too drunk to know what he was doing, even through he killed Lutz hours after leaving the bar.

A jury ultimately convicted Wilson and sentenced him to death.

On the video, Wilson’s supporters don’t dispute that he should be punished, but they argue that he is a changed man who is remorseful for his crimes.

“He’s a good man who made a bad mistake,” Wilson’s long-time friend Thomas Skinner said in the video. “Please don’t take away his life for that mistake.”

Lutz’s family rejected Wilson’s apologies at a clemency hearing before the Ohio Parole Board last month, saying they didn’t believe he was truly sorry for what he’d done and has never apologized.

The Parole Board recommended unanimously that Strickland allow Wilson’s execution to continue.

Werneke said Wilson’s legal team is still trying to find a federal or state court to halt the execution, but Wilson knows he may die next month.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/wilson-sends-evidence-of-abuse-to-governor/

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Ruling goes against death row inmate
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

Convicted killer Daniel Wilson has lost another legal battle to avoid execution, but it was a fight his lawyers expected to lose.

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Wilson’s efforts to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection protocols, which other death row inmates have also unsuccessfully fought in state and federal courts.

Wilson, 39, is scheduled to be executed June 3 for the May 4, 1991, murder of Carol Lutz, whom he locked in the trunk of her car before puncturing the gas tank and setting the car on fire.

Alan Rossman, an assistant federal defender working on Wilson’s case, said he expected the ruling from U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost because Frost has previously ruled that other death row defendants missed their window to file such challenges.

Rossman has already appealed Frost’s decision to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, where he hopes to have more success.

“We knew this was a battle that would ultimately have to go to the 6th Circuit,” he said.

Frost’s decision said the lethal injection method used in Ohio and other states has already undergone scrutiny, including a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld Kentucky’s execution protocols.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has already held that Wilson and other inmates should have mounted challenges to the state’s lethal injection process by December 2001 or before.

But Rossman said new information about the qualifications of the team that administers the fatal drugs to condemned inmates has surfaced in other death penalty challenges, and he believes that needs to undergo further review.

“The question is how you could claim he should have filed suit years ago when the information wasn’t available,” he said.

The state has been reluctant to provide details of the training of its execution team and continues to withhold the identities of those who carry out the lethal injections, including during hearings held by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge last year.

Burge ruled that the state may only use a massive dose of sedative to execute accused killers Ruben Rivera and Ronald McCloud if they are convicted and sentenced to death.

The state currently uses a cocktail of three drugs to carry out executions — the sedative to render the condemned inmate unconscious, a second drug to paralyze him and a third drug to stop the inmate’s heart.

Burge determined that protocol couldn’t guarantee the quick and painless death that Ohio law requires.
Wilson is also challenging his death sentence in the state courts and is awaiting a decision on clemency from Gov. Ted Strickland.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/ruling-goes-against-death-row-inmate/

[thinkinkmesa]

Cross post;

Wilson execution would use new protocol
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

If convicted killer Daniel Wilson is executed as scheduled on June 3, it will be under a new set of protocols that are designed to ensure condemned inmates have been rendered unconscious by a sedative before two other fatal — and potentially painful — drugs are administered.

The new procedures now require the warden or another member of the execution team to check whether a condemned inmate is unconscious by calling his name, shaking his shoulder and pinching his arm or through the use of another “noxious stimulus” before the rest of the lethal three-drug cocktail used by the state in executions is administered.

The old protocol contained no such safeguards against an inmate remaining conscious.

The execution team member who connected the intravenous lines to the injection ports on the inmate’s arms will also be required to check for problems with the system delivering the fatal drugs after the sedative has been administered under the new guidelines. Previously, the warden and execution team leader had watched for problems with the lines, but no inspection was conducted.

The new protocol also requires that the execution team prepare four grams of the sedative, thiopental sodium, instead of the two grams that had previously been required.

The sedative will be divided into four syringes, two of which are backup doses, according to the new protocols, which were approved by Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Terry Collins.

The protocols also increase the amount of time that a saline drip will flush the lines carrying the drugs to the inmate from at least one minute to at least 90 seconds.

The amounts of pancuronium bromide, which follows the sedative into the inmate’s bloodstream and causes paralysis, and the final drug, potassium chloride, which induces a heart attack, that are administered remained the same as under the state’s previous protocol, which had been in effect since October 2006.

The state has come under fire from death penalty opponents and death row inmates who claim that there is no way to guarantee that an inmate is unconscious before the final two drugs are administered.

In a controversial ruling last year, Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge came to the same conclusion and ordered the state to use only the sedative to execute accused killers Ruben Rivera and Ronald McCloud if they are convicted in separate Lorain murders and sentenced to death.

Use of the other two drugs violated a state law that requires executions to be “quick and painless,” Burge ruled. Experts during Burge’s hearings testified that the sedative was powerful enough to kill on its own.

Jeff Gamso, an attorney who represented Rivera and McCloud during the Burge hearings, said he was disappointed that the state will continue to use the three-drug cocktail.

“It’s mind-bogglingly stupid,” he said. “We know there’s a better way to do it, and they just aren’t interested in doing it.”

The state also was criticized by U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost after he reviewed the state’s previous execution protocol in the case of convicted killer Kenneth Biros, who is also on death row awaiting execution.

While Frost said Biros hadn’t proved that the state’s execution methods were unconstitutional, he also called it “a system replete with inherent flaws that raise profound concerns and present unnecessary risks.”

Alan Rossman, an assistant federal public defender who represents Wilson, said he believes the state made the changes because of Frost’s complaints about how the execution team members are trained.
Wilson was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of Carol Lutz, whom he locked in the trunk of her car before puncturing the gas tank and setting the car on fire.

Rossman said his client also has raised questions about the training of the members of the execution team who handle the medical preparations of a condemned inmate and administer the lethal drugs.
Under the new protocols, the executioners handling and administering the drugs must be medical professionals under Ohio law to administer and prepare intravenous drugs. They must also have at least one year of experience as a certified medical assistant, phlebotomist, EMT, paramedic or military corpsman.

The old protocol only required that those execution team members be certified to handle and administer drugs under Ohio law.

“It looks like they have seriously taken to heart that the team execution members need to be properly qualified and educated, not only in the nature of the drugs but injecting the drugs and how to detect problems,” Rossman said.

But Rossman said he’s unsure how the new protocols will impact Wilson’s arguments that the execution team is medically unqualified to handle the drugs.

It could eliminate the issue, he said, but it could also help Wilson win a stay of execution.

“There’s some question whether or not the present execution team members have any of this knowledge and training,” Rossman said.

JoEllen Culp, a spokeswoman for the prison system, said the new protocols are the result of a continuous review of how executions are carried out.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/wilson-execution-would-use-new-protocol/

[thinkinkmesa]

Corrections official: Some death penalty changes already in use
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

A desire to make certain condemned inmates die painlessly prompted changes made earlier this month to the protocols used by Ohio’s executioners to carry out lethal injections, according to the state prison system’s attorney.

“There are very few guarantees in life, but we certainly want to do everything we can to ensure that the person being executed does not suffer,” Gregory Trout, chief legal counsel for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said Wednesday.

But Trout also said that simply because the new procedures — including calling out an inmate’s name, shaking his shoulder and pinching him after he’s been given a powerful sedative — have been written down doesn’t mean they haven’t been used before in the death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

The state’s execution team has checked to make sure the condemned inmate is truly unconscious in the past few executions before the final two drugs in the lethal three-drug cocktail used by the state are administered.

While the sedative, thiopental sodium, is supposed to render the condemned unconscious, death penalty critics say there’s a chance the inmate could remain conscious when the final two drugs begin to flow into his veins. The new protocols call for an extra dose of the sedative to be on hand in case the inmate remains conscious after the first dose.

The second drug, pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the inmate before the last drug, potassium chloride, induces a heart attack.

One thing that will definitely be new for convicted killer Daniel Wilson, who will be the first inmate to be executed under the new protocols if his scheduled June 3 execution goes forward, is having an execution team member check the equipment that carries the drugs into an inmate’s veins after the sedative is administered, Trout said.

“It’s all part of continuing to verify that there has not been a problem in the delivery of the drugs,” he said.

Last year Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge ruled that the state couldn’t guarantee that the sedative would knock out an inmate, who could suffer horribly as the other drugs took effect if he were still conscious. It was a violation, Burge said, of a state law requiring a “quick and painless” death.

Trout said there’s only been one instance in Ohio’s history of executions in which an inmate didn’t succumb quickly to the sedative — during the 2006 execution of Joseph Clark.

Execution team members had trouble finding veins on Clark, a former intravenous drug user, in which to insert the shunts that carry the lethal drugs into an inmate’s blood stream. Eventually execution team members settled on using only one shunt instead of the normal two, but that line failed and another line had to be established to finish the job.

Clark told officials during the execution that the drugs weren’t working.

“The concern, I suppose, was first manifested, and only manifested, in the execution of Joseph Clark when he spoke,” Trout said.

Death penalty critics have gone so far as to call for brainwave monitors to be attached to condemned inmates, but Trout said that’s not necessary and the protocols now being used by the execution team are enough.

“Evaluating consciousness is a pretty simple matter,” he said. “It’s not something that needs medical equipment.”

Alan Rossman, an assistant federal public defender who represents Wilson, said prison officials should be commended for taking the concerns of critics into account.

Wilson, who was sentenced to death for murdering Carol Lutz by locking her in the trunk of her car, puncturing the gas tank and setting the car ablaze in 1991, is among the death row inmates who have challenged how the state carries out its executions and the training of the people who handled the drugs and injections.

“It looks like they sat down to specifically address the concerns that were being litigated,” Rossman said.

Rossman said he and Wilson’s other attorneys are still evaluating how the new protocols will impact Wilson’s fight to stay alive. He said he has concerns over whether the execution team members meet the training and experience requirements set forth in the new protocols.

Trout said they do.

Wilson also is challenging whether he was properly sentenced to death and is awaiting a decision from Gov. Ted Strickland on clemency.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/corrections-official-some-death-penalty-changes-already-in-use/

[thinkinkmesa]

Wilson loses latest appeal
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

ELYRIA — Daniel Wilson’s efforts to avoid the executioner’s needle on June 3 are back in front of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Just hours after the 9th District Court of Appeals ruled against Wilson’s argument that his death sentence for the 1991 murder of Carol Lutz wasn’t properly imposed, his attorneys appealed the decision to the state’s highest court.

Alan Rossman, an assistant federal public defender representing Wilson, said the appeals court decision wasn’t a surprise and they wanted to get the case before the Ohio Supreme Court as quickly as possible.

“Time is of the essence,” he said.

Wilson’s lawyers contend that jurors weren’t properly instructed on how to consider Wilson’s defense that he was drunk when he killed Lutz by locking her in the trunk of her car, puncturing the gas tank and setting the car on fire in a school parking lot.

The U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals determined that while the jury was given improper instructions, it was a harmless error, Rossman said.

“Our position remains that Dan Wilson is not eligible to be executed because the federal courts invalidated the (capital) specification,” he said.

Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will disagreed. He said the federal appeals court said that if there was an error it wouldn’t have made a difference in the jury’s decision to sentence Wilson to death.

“Even if it was an error, it was a harmless error,” he said.

Rossman said that argument doesn’t make sense.

“Federal courts aren’t allowed to give hypothetical opinions,” he said.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge also reviewed Wilson’s arguments and determined that he didn’t have the authority to set aside the death sentence as Wilson’s lawyers had asked him to do.

Wilson doesn’t deny killing Lutz but wants to serve a life prison sentence instead of being executed.
Wilson’s attorneys are also fighting in the federal courts to keep their client alive, arguing that the members of the state’s execution team who administer the fatal three-drug cocktail used to kill condemned inmates may not be properly trained.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has recently revised its execution protocols, and Wilson is in line to be the first inmate executed under the new rules. After Wilson is given a sedative, the warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility will call his name, shake his shoulder and pinch him to make certain Wilson is unconscious before the final two drugs are administered.

Critics of the death penalty have argued that if the sedative isn’t properly given to an inmate, the other two drugs, which cause paralysis and induce a heart attack, could cause an excruciatingly painful death.

Wilson, 39, is also still awaiting a decision from Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on clemency.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/wilson-loses-latest-appeal/

[thinkinkmesa]

Convicted killer asks for delay
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

Convicted killer Daniel Wilson has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to delay his execution, set for June 3, while he continues to fight his legal battles.

The state’s highest court has already rejected one such request from Wilson, who was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of Carol Lutz. Wilson, who doesn’t deny killing Lutz, locked her in the trunk of her car, punctured the gas tank and set the car on fire.

In Wilson’s request for a stay of execution, filed Tuesday, his attorneys wrote that Wilson has two separate issues pending in state and federal courts, including one before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Wilson, 39, is challenging the state’s lethal injection protocols and how the state’s execution team is trained in federal court.

The state implemented a new protocol earlier this month that, among other changes, requires the warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility to call out a condemned inmate’s name, shake his shoulder and pinch him after the inmate is given a powerful sedative to knock him unconscious.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction will now keep a second dose of the sedative available to administer before the second and third drugs are injected if the inmate is still conscious after the first dose of the sedative. The second and third drugs paralyze the inmate and stop his heart.

The new protocols also imposed a requirement that execution team members who handle the drugs have professional experience administering intravenous drugs. Previously, those executioners only needed to be trained in dealing with the drugs.

Wilson’s attorneys, Alan Rossman and David Doughten, argue that the changes were made to neutralize Wilson’s challenge to how execution team members are trained.

Wilson is also arguing before the Ohio Supreme Court that his death sentence wasn’t properly imposed because of how jurors were instructed before they began their deliberations on whether Wilson should be executed for killing Lutz.

Wilson’s lawyers contend that because a federal appeals court said it was an error, it should be enough to win a new sentencing hearing for their client.

Prosecutors have countered that the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals offered a hypothetical review of Wilson’s argument and concluded that even if he was correct about a mistake being made it wouldn’t have made a difference in the jury’s decision.

Wilson, who wants to have his death sentence changed to life in prison, is also awaiting a decision from Gov. Ted Strickland on commutation.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/convicted-killer-asks-for-delay/

[thinkinkmesa]

Wilson loses two more appeals
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram

Convicted killer Daniel Wilson is running out of ways to avoid execution on Wednesday.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed two appeals Wilson had filed arguing that his death sentence was improperly imposed after he was convicted for the 1991 murder of Carol Lutz.

The state’s highest court also rejected Wilson’s request for a stay of execution.

Wilson still has an appeal pending in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and is awaiting a decision from Gov. Ted Strickland on clemency.

Wilson, 39, had asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set aside his death sentence because he contends jurors were improperly instructed on how to consider his drunkenness defense before they deliberated on what his sentence should be.

The 9th District Court of Appeals and Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge already have reviewed and rejected the same argument.

Wilson’s attorneys cite an earlier ruling made by the 6th Circuit of Appeals in which they said the court ruled that there was an error, although it wouldn’t have impacted the jury’s decision.

Wilson doesn’t deny killing Lutz but should be given a new sentencing hearing, his attorneys have said. They want him to receive life in prison instead of death.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, have argued that there was no error and the federal appeals court never said there was. Rather, they contend the federal appeals court only was offering a hypothetical discussion of Wilson’s argument.

Wilson kidnapped Lutz outside an Elyria bar and drove around with her in the trunk of her car before puncturing the gas tank and setting the car on fire while she was still alive.

In his current federal appeal, Wilson is arguing that the executioners who prepare and administer the three-drug cocktail used in lethal injections aren’t properly trained.

Earlier this month, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction adopted a new set of execution protocols that require not only training in how to handle and administer intravenous drugs but also real-world experience.

The new protocols also now require an extra dose of the sedative used in executions to be available and for the warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility to call the inmate’s name, shake his shoulder and pinch his arm to make sure he is unconscious after the sedative is administered.

Death penalty critics argue that if the sedative fails to work properly, the inmate would suffer a painful death as the second drug paralyzes them and the third drug induces a heart attack.
www.chroniclet.com/2009/05/wilson-loses-two-more-appeals/

[thinkinkmesa]

Ohio court turns down condemned killer's plea
May 28, 2009 17:26 EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The Ohio Supreme Court has refused to delay
the execution of a man scheduled to die next week for locking a woman
in the trunk of his car and burning her alive.

The court ruled Thursday that death row inmate Daniel Wilson failed
to raise any substantial constitutional issues in his most recent
requests for a delay.

Wilson is scheduled to die by injection Wednesday for the 1991
slaying of Carol Lutz in Elyria in northeast Ohio.

The 39-year-old Wilson wanted the court to hear his argument that he
was improperly sentenced to death because of an error in the capital
charges that the jury considered in his case. Wilson also wanted a
delay while he challenges Ohio's lethal injection process.

He has also asked Gov. Ted Strickland to grant him mercy.
www.wtte28.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.oh/30b96df3-www.wtte28.com.shtml

[thinkinkmesa]

Condemned killer running out of options
NorthCoastNOW

Convicted killer Daniel Wilson’s legal team has worked its way through virtually every state and federal court in an effort to save him from a one-way trip to Ohio’s death house next week.

All that’s left after a U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Thursday is the U.S. Supreme Court, and Wilson’s lawyers are preparing to ask the high court for a stay of execution, said Vicki Werneke, an assistant federal public defender working on Wilson’s case.

Late Thursday afternoon, the federal appeals court rejected Wilson’s challenge to Ohio’s lethal injection process.

His attorneys have focused heavily on whether the execution team members who handle and administer the fatal three-drug cocktail are properly trained and experienced.

The appeals court ruled that the issues Wilson is raising already have been dealt with by the courts.

It upheld a federal district court judge’s decision that the statute of limitations had expired for Wilson to challenge whether the state’s execution protocols were constitutional.

“It’s not really a surprise, but it is a disappointment,” Werneke said.

Wilson, 39, doesn’t deny that he killed Carol Lutz on May 4, 1991, by locking her in the trunk of her car, puncturing the gas tank and then setting the car on fire.

He then walked away without looking back.

Wilson wants to serve a life prison term instead of being executed.

Wilson, along with other death row inmates and critics of the death penalty, contends that if the first drug in the execution, a sedative, is improperly administered the condemned inmate would suffer horribly as the other two drugs paralyze the inmate and stop his heart.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction revised its execution protocols earlier this month and now require the warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville to call the inmate’s name, shake his shoulder and pinch him after the sedative has been administered to ensure the inmate is unconscious. A second dose of the sedative will also now be kept on hand in case the first dose doesn’t knock the inmate out.

Wilson also exhausted his appeals in the state courts on Thursday, when the Ohio Supreme Court threw out his argument that he was improperly sentenced to death because of an error in how jurors were instructed before they began deliberating on his sentence.

Wilson is still awaiting a decision from Gov. Ted Strickland on clemency, something the Ohio Parole Board recommended against.

Werneke said Wilson is waiting to see how the legal process will play out.

“He’s doing as well as he can under the circumstances,” she said.

chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2009/05/30/condemned-killer-running-out-of-options/

[thinkinkmesa]

Strickland denies clemency for condemned Ohio killer

JUNE 1, 2009
COLUMBUS (AP) — Gov. Ted Strickland on Monday rejected clemency for a
condemned killer who cited a horrific childhood in asking he be
spared execution for locking a woman in a car trunk and burning her
alive.

Strickland said he weighed evidence from the trial of Daniel Wilson,
court rulings and arguments presented for and against Wilson at his
April clemency hearing before making his decision.

The governor, a Democrat, had asked Wilson’s attorneys for additional
information, leading them to believe he gave the request serious
consideration, David Doughten, a Cleveland attorney representing
Wilson, said Monday.

Wilson’s alcoholic father would prevent Wilson and his brothers from
going to the bathroom for long periods and beat them after
handcuffing them to a chair, according to documents presented to the
Ohio Parole Board.

Wilson’s last chance to avoid execution appears to be a pair of
appeals he filed with the U.S. Supreme Court Friday.

In one appeal, Wilson argues he was improperly required to prove he
was so drunk the day of the murder that he couldn’t have intended to
kill Lutz.

Wilson argues that it was unconstitutional in Ohio at the time to
require a criminal defendant to provide such proof.

Instead, he argues, it was up to the prosecutors to prove that he did
intend to kill Lutz.
Wilson says lower federal courts have agreed with him that a mistake
was made.

The state says Wilson is misinterpreting those federal decisions.

In a second appeal, Wilson says he should be allowed to continue a
challenge of Ohio’s lethal injection procedures based on new details
about the process that emerged during a March hearing in federal court.

Following the hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost ruled
that Ohio’s execution process is a flawed system that raises
troubling concerns, but those problems do not rise to the level of a
constitutional violation.

www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20090601/UPDATES01/90601016/1052/COMMUNITIES02

[thinkinkmesa]

Email received;

1) The letter says, "Governor Strickland gave a great deal of thought and consideration..." yet there seems to be little care because the letter reads like a form letter, where only the name is changed.

2) If there had been a great deal of thought and consideration in this process, why is the inmate number incorrect? Does the inmate number 357-869 look familiar to anyone? #A357-869 is Hartmann, the man that was scheduled for execution last month and received a stay by the 6th circuit because of innocence issues.

3) Seems to me the Governor was set to deny clemency for Brett Hartmann.

So, clemency is denied!! But to whom? Makes you wonder if the right case was being reviewed.

To view actual letter; ohiodeathrow.blogspot.com/2009/05/daniel-wilson.html

[thinkinkmesa]

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — A man who locked a woman in the trunk of her car, punctured the gas tank and burned her alive was delivered to the Ohio death house this morning, where he will spend his final 24-hours before he is executed.

Daniel Wilson, 39, was calm and compliant on his journey from death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, said prisons spokeswoman Andrea Carson.

Wilson is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Wednesday for the May 4, 1991, murder of 24-year-old Carol Lutz.

He was expected to receive friends and family between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, while he dines on the extensive assortment of foods he selected as his last meal.

His menu includes a well-done porter house steak with steak sauce, a baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits, salad with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, green peppers, carrots and French dressing, corn on the cob with butter, grapes, macaroni and cheese, dinner rolls and Cool Ranch Doritos with a jar of salsa. For dessert, Wilson will have strawberry ice cream and strawberry cheesecake -- both with real strawberries -- and he'll wash it all down with a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper with ice. He has also requested one tea bag.

Gov. Ted Strickland denied Wilson's plea for clemency Monday. In a written statement, Strickland said he made his decision after reviewing evidence and testimony presented at Wilson's clemency hearing in April before the Ohio Adult Parole Authority.

Wilson argued at the hearing that his mother abandoned him at a young age and that his childhood was marred by his father's consistent abuse and torture.

Prosecutors countered that Wilson had ample opportunities to release his victim before torching the car with Carol Lutz inside.

Lutz's parents, Martha and Jerry Lutz, and her brother, Doug Lutz, will witness Wilson's execution Wednesday, Carson said. Also present will be Wilson's cousin Rodney Mele, friend Brent Mowry and Wilson's attorney, Alan Rossman.
blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/06/daniel_wilson_gets_last_meal_p.html

[thinkinkmesa]

Crowd gathers to pray for Wilson on eve of execution
Published: Wednesday, June 3, 2009

By RICHARD PAYERCHIN


Terry Howell reads the letter written by convicted killer Daniel Wilson to about 25 people gathered for a prayer vigil at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Elyria. MORNING JOURNAL/RICHARD PAYERCHIN

ELYRIA — On the eve of the execution of Daniel Wilson, about 25 people gathered in St. Agnes Catholic Church for a candlelight prayer vigil organized by Karen Howell, who was Wilson's next-door neighbor when his family lived on Taft Avenue in Elyria in the early 1970s.

"I remember him as a very sweet little boy, a very sweet little boy, blond, curly hair," Howell said. She baby-sat Wilson but avoided the boy's father, Don, who was abusive to Wilson, his mother, Linda, and his brothers, Donnie and David.

Howell has spoken by telephone to Wilson this year and said he is a "totally different person" from the man who, in 1991, set fire to the car with Carol Lutz locked in the trunk.

"He's got a positive attitude; he's close with God now," Howell said. "Danny's very remorseful, and I just believe that killing another person for killing another person is not the answer."

Those attending the vigil sang "Amazing Grace" and held candles as they walked down the church's center aisle.

They prayed and listened to passages from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans and the gospel of St. Matthew, who recounted Pontius Pilate's condemnation of Jesus.

The group should pray for peace for Wilson, forgiveness and a change to Ohio and U.S. laws that permit the death penalty, said the Rev. Al Krupp, pastor at St. Agnes parish.

"Our God is one who is merciful and forgiving, and based in that mercy, which God will never deny us, Daniel can feel peace and serenity tonight," Krupp said.

Howell's husband, Terry, read the letter Wilson wrote in April to the Ohio Parole Board.

"I have spent the last 18 years wishing that I had made another decision," Wilson wrote, not because he is on death row but because Lutz should have had a long and happy life.

"I accept responsibility for my actions," Wilson wrote. He apologized to Lutz' family.

Howell said the vigil was not meant to diminish Lutz' memory.

When asked what she would say to Wilson, Howell said, "I just would say to him, 'I hope you've spoken to God, and he's forgiven you. I know he has. In the next life, everything will be different.' His victim is there; she will see him. Hopefully, everything will be forgiven there."

[thinkinkmesa]

Killer Wilson executed at Lucasville
He burned woman to death in car trunk in 1991

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 9:40 AM
Updated: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 10:51 AM
By Alan Johnson

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

COLUMBUS (AP) -- The Ohio Supreme Court this morning set execution dates for two killers on death row.

The court set a Nov. 10 date for Darryl Durr of Elyria in Lorain County, who raped and strangled a 16-year-old girl in 1988.

The court set a Dec. 8 date for Kenneth Biros, who killed a 22-year-old woman near Warren in northeast Ohio in 1991.

The state plans six executions this year in addition to Daniel Wilson's today.
LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- The "horrendous decision" that Daniel Wilson made 18 years ago came full circle this morning when he was executed for locking Carol Lutz in the trunk of her car and setting it on fire.

Wilson, 39, died at 10:33 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection of drugs at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.

With Lutz's mother, father and brother looking on from a few feet away, Wilson was strapped to the lethal injection table where he made a final statement.

"First I would like to apologize to Mr. and Mrs. and Doug Lutz for what I did to Carol. I would like to say to my family and friends I'm sorry I didn't do better. I believe in Jesus. He is my Lord and Savior."

Wilson was the first man executed in Ohio this year and the first ever to die under a revised lethal injection protocol initiated by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in response to criticism of the process as being "flawed" in a recent court case.

The new protocol, which took much longer than usual, calls for two doses of sedative to be administered instead of just one. That is followed by a paralytic drug and finally one that stops the heart.

The policy also requires the warden to determine if the condemned man is truly unconscious by calling his name and shaking and pinching his arm.

Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing the 24-year-old Lutz with whom he'd been drinking at the Empire Bar in Elyria on the evening of May 3, 1991. After Lutz gave Wilson a ride home, he abducted her and locked her in the trunk of her black 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

The next morning, Wilson tried to set the car on fire, with Lutz still in the trunk, but the flames fizzled. He let her out briefly but ignored her pleas to let her go and forced her back in the trunk.

This time, the flames did not fail.

Wilson walked away and didn't look back.

Arson investigators estimated the temperature in the trunk may have reached 550 degrees, literally roasting Lutz alive.

In his clemency request to the Ohio Parole Board -- which was unanimously rejected -- Wilson said he regretted the "horrendous decision" he made to kill Lutz.

"I have spent every day of the last 18 years being sorry for what I did," Wilson wrote.

Courts at all levels affirmed Wilson's conviction and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down his last-minute appeal yesterday, a day after Gov. Ted Strickland rejected his clemency request.

Wilson's execution was Ohio's 29th since resuming capital punishment in February 1999.

[Tina]

LUCASVILLE — Beads of sweat glistened on Daniel Wilson's brow in the dim light of the execution chamber Wednesday morning. But his face wore the calm, stoic look of resignation, as a lethal cocktail of chemicals snaked through tubes toward the shunts in his arms.

The family of Carol Lutz -- who Wilson locked in a car trunk and torched alive 18 years ago -- watched unflinchingly beyond a glass partition. Wilson's brief, composed apology hovered in the five feet that stretched between them, along with the recognition that he was about to die more peacefully, more mercifully than Lutz did.

After 17 years on death row, Wilson, 39, died by lethal injection at the Lucasville prison -- becoming the 29th person to be executed since Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1999.

Shortly after 10 a.m., a closed-circuit monitor flickered on, displaying a bird's-eye view of prison medical technicians preparing Wilson for execution. Wilson remained motionless on the gurney for nearly 15 minutes, even as techs struggled to place a shunt in his right arm, saturating a paper towel with blood that oozed from the inmate's punctured vein.

Wilson entered the death chamber at 10:16 a.m. and calmly climbed onto the gurney. As officers strapped down his shunted arms, Wilson raised his head to see his two cousins, an attorney and the Rev. Neil Kookoothe, his spiritual adviser, gathered on the other side of the glass.

Kookoothe raised a hand to comfort Wilson. At 10:20, Wilson, his eyes fixated on the ceiling, uttered his final words: "I want to say to the Lutz family that I'm very sorry for what I did to Carol. I want to say to my family that I'm sorry for how things turned out. I love you. I believe in Jesus. He's my Lord and savior. I'm going home."

Wilson's eyes fluttered closed, as a dose of the sedative sodium pentothal took hold. His chest and stomach heaved several times and his breathing became erratic, then gradually more shallow with each inhalation.

Prison Warden Phillip Kerns called Wilson's name and pinched his arm -- part of the prison's new procedure to test for unconsciousness before administering the final two drugs that stop breathing and heartbeat.

The lethal chemicals that followed -- pancuronium bromide to seize the lungs and potassium chloride to stop the heartbeat -- overtook Wilson quietly. He died at 10:33 a.m.

Prison spokeswoman Andrea Carson said Wilson remained calm and compliant on the eve of his execution. His cousins, attorneys and Kookoothe visited him in the early evening Tuesday, as he dined on a veritable buffet of food he selected as his last meal.

He hardly slept, opting instead to spend the night on the phone with friends and his mother, whom he called several times before dawn, Carson said. He left his breakfast untouched and drank only tea in his final hours, Carson said.

Gov. Ted Strickland denied Wilson clemency on Monday. And his appeals ran out Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last effort.

During a news conference after the execution, Kookoothe emphasized the sincerity of Wilson's remorse and said the inmate had faced death with courage and dignity. The Catholic priest criticized Strickland for preparing his clemency rejection letter so hastily that it cited the wrong inmate's number beneath Wilson's name. He also condemned the death penalty.

"This situation began with death, and it ends with death," Kookoothe said. "There's death along the whole spectrum. Nothing was achieved."

Lutz's family, who said they have waited 18 years and 29 days to watch Wilson die, disagreed.

"People think we're cruel," said Martha Lutz, who witnessed the execution with her husband Jerry and son Doug. "But the cruel part of this is never to have Carol with us ever again."

During the night before Lutz's death in May 1991, Wilson had been drinking at a local bar with some friends and Lutz when she offered Wilson a ride home. Wilson's memory of the events that followed is hazy. But in his confession to police, he said he awoke in the morning in a parking lot, behind the wheel of Lutz's 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Lutz was locked in the trunk.

Wilson said he drove around town, took a walk in a park, and wondered what to do next. Finally, he parked the car behind a school, stuffed a rag in the neck of the open gas tank and tried to use it as a wick.

The flame fizzled. By then, Lutz was begging for a bathroom break. Wilson released her momentarily, but then forced her back into the trunk. She sat for a while in the trunk with the lid open, smoked a cigarette with Wilson and bargained for her release.

She tried to convince Wilson that she would turn her back and he would never hear from her again. But that was too risky, he concluded, and locked her back in the trunk. He then punctured the gas tank with a tire iron, reset the wick and lit the car ablaze.

Later that afternoon, passersby reported a car fire. When firefighters extinguished the flames, they found Lutz's body in the trunk. Her clothing and hair had mostly burned off, and portions of her skin had burst open as heat built up in her tissues. Arson investigators estimated temperatures in the trunk topped 550 degrees.

At trial, Wilson claimed he was too intoxicated when he committed the crime to understand the gravity of his actions. But a Lorain County jury convicted him of aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated arson, and he was sentenced to death in April 1992.

He later appealed his guilty verdict, arguing that the burden of proof should have been on the state, not on him to prove his innocence.

Wilson's clemency request in April highlighted his tortured childhood with an abusive father and alcoholic foster parents.

But prosecutors countered Wilson's argument with examples of vicious crimes from his adolescence. At the age of 14, Wilson broke into the house of an 82-year-old neighbor and ransacked the home. Wilson ripped the telephone cord out of the wall when confronted with the old man, who broke a hip in the struggle and later died of pneumonia.

Wilson was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served two years in a detention center for youths. But in his request for clemency, he explained that his father deprived him and his brother of food, and he had to rob neighbors to survive.

In a written statement to the Adult Parole Authority, Wilson apologized to the families he destroyed on account of his crimes. He said he is a changed man and begged for mercy.

Martha Lutz said today that even without clemency, Wilson received more mercy than he deserved, more compassion than he showed her daughter.

"His death was nothing like Carol's," she said. "All he ever cared about was saving himself. But he should have thought of that before he closed the lid, set the car on fire and walked away."

www.cleveland.com/crime/index.ssf/2009/06/daniel_wilson_executed_by_leth.html

[thinkinkmesa]

Pastor Neil Kookoothe reads final statement from Daniel Wilson
Pastor Neil Kookoothe, a Roman Catholic priest and spiritual advisor, reads a written statement from Daniel Wilson after his execution at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville on June 3.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlGWhNijgUE

Brad Dicken describes execution of Daniel WIlson
Chronicle reporter Brad Dicken, an execution witness, describes the procedure at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville on June 3.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=02CEPrJUG-Q&feature=related

The Lutz family response to the execution of Daniel Wilson
Martha Lutz, mother of Carol Lutz, reads a statement on behalf of the Lutz family after the execution of Daniel Wilson at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville on June 3.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=djMmv6Gu4VA&feature=related

" STAND SOMEWHERE ELSE "
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQnH4fvZMC4
and the video response to " STAND SOMEWHERE ELSE "
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hyY4Apt2sA&feature=response_watch

[guest]

I'm Not Always Sure

mysticspiralstudio.blogspot.com/2009/05/im-not-always-sure.html