COLUMBUS - A little more than two weeks on the job, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Terry Collins will face questions this morning about problems that plagued the May 2 execution of Joseph Lewis Clark.
Mr. Collins, a 29-year department veteran, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Criminal Justice, which is expected to ultimately recommend his confirmation to the full chamber. Such gubernatorial appointments are usually routine, but the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Marc Dann, requested a personal appearance by Mr. Collins to answer questions about the execution and labor issues associated with the state's prison system.
Ohio had to try twice to execute Clark, 57, in a process that lasted nearly an hour and a half, believed to be the second-longest lethal injection in the country. The Toledo native was executed for the 1984 robbery shooting of David A. Manning, 23, during a nine-day robbery spree. He also confessed to killing Donald B. Harris, 21, the night before shooting Mr. Manning, but he received a life sentence in that case.
The execution team struggled to find useable veins in both arms of Clark, who had been a long-time intravenous drug user before his arrest 22 years ago. Then, after making the decision to break with normal procedure and proceed with the execution with a heparin lock in just one arm, the execution team was surprised when Clark did not respond as the 20 others who preceded him had. Clark suddenly raised his head from the gurney and repeatedly told the team, "It don't work."
The team closed the curtain separating the execution chamber from the witness room, but witnesses could hear Clark moaning and groaning for several minutes before the room became silent. The vein had apparently collapsed, and the team worked for nearly half an hour trying to find another.
According to an incident report later filed by an unidentified member of the execution team, Clark asked the team, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?"
At some point, Clark fell asleep, apparently because enough of the first drug, designed to sedate him, had eventually worked its way into his system. The curtain was reopened and witnesses watched as the process resumed. "This has become a very big story. I have so far returned media calls to Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Japan, and the U.K.," Andrea Dean, department spokesman, advised Gov. Bob Taft's office in an e-mail obtained by The Blade.
"It's very troubling," said Mr. Dann. "It gives rise to issues, possible civil exposure for the state. We certainly want people to have confidence in law enforcement. We don't want to be a laughingstock. This is a very serious, emotional subject."
A candidate for state attorney general, the Youngstown area Democrat supports enforcement of Ohio's death penalty.
Ms. Dean said Mr. Collins will name a committee this week to conduct an internal review of the execution and release its findings before the next scheduled execution of Darrell Ferguson of Montgomery County on July 14.
State Auditor Betty Montgomery, a Republican seeking to return to her old job as attorney general, said she will wait to see what emerges from the internal review before reaching a conclusion as to whether a more public hearing process is needed.
"I think it comes down to probably human error, because there's not been any problem before," she said. "I don't want us to overreact, but clearly there's a problem, and that needs to be dealt with. That is not fair to anyone. I don't care how bad a human being is in terms of what he's done to people, he doesn't deserve to go through what he went through."
Current Attorney General Jim Petro said he doesn't believe there is anything subject to public review.
"It's more a medical issue than anything else, related to the medical condition of Joseph Lewis Clark," he said. "This is one of those unusual happenings that occur because of the physical condition that the inmate presented."
Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.
First Published May 17, 2006, 11:30 a.m.