COLUMBUS - Studying legal documents and refusing to select a last meal, convicted killer Lewis Williams spent the day before his scheduled execution quietly while a final appeal went before a federal appeals court.
Williams, 45, is scheduled to die today for shooting a 76-year-old woman in the face in a 1983 Cleveland robbery. Williams is trying to challenge the constitutionality of how inmates are executed in Ohio.
On Monday, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the request by Williams and a second death row inmate to review the constitutionality of a drug used to execute Ohio prisoners. A request that the full court consider the issue was pending yesterday afternoon.
The other inmate, John G. Roe, is scheduled for execution Feb. 3 for the 1984 kidnapping, robbery and shooting death of a 21-year-old woman in Columbus.
Williams, 45, arrived at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility about 10 a.m. yesterday, said Andrea Dean, prison system spokeswoman. He is being held in a cell next to the execution chamber.
Williams declined to select a last meal, referred to as a special meal by prison officials. When asked what he wanted on two separate occasions yesterday, he replied, God's word
Dean said.
As a result, he will be served what other inmates were eating for dinner yesterday, Dean said. That included smoked sausage, rice with black-eyed peas, collard greens, grape Kool-Aid, vanilla pudding and bread, she said.
Williams spent the day working on legal documents, Dean said. He has been very compliant he hasn't caused any problems at all she said.
He met late yesterday afternoon with his mother, Bonnie Williams of Columbus, and his spiritual adviser, Charles Morgan.
Williams maintained his innocence last month in a death-row interview at Mansfield Correctional Institution.
I wasn't there. I didn't do it
Williams said. I'm a victim of a miscarriage of justice because I'm completely innocent.
Prosecutors say Williams has changed his story several times about his involvement, including one statement that his gun went off while fighting with the dog of his victim, Leoma Chmielewski.
Chmielewski was slain during a robbery at her east side Cleveland home on Jan. 21, 1983.
Public defenders are arguing on Williams and Roe's behalf that the use of a muscle-paralyzing drug in lethal injections is cruel and unusual punishment.
The challenge contends that the use of pancuronium bromide, a muscle-paralyzing drug known by the trade name Pavulon, could leave inmates conscious before they die.
The court panel noted in part that documents submitted by the state indicate that Roe and Williams' concerns are so unlikely as to be unmeasurable.
Federal appeals courts in Virginia and Colorado have delayed executions based on similar arguments, while the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia has denied requests for delays, said Stephen Farrell, an assistant state public defender.
We're frankly not sure what's the reason behind the disparate treatment
Farrell said yesterday. Something's going on here that the full panel of judges ought to address
especially before Williams is allowed to be executed tomorrow.
Farrell argues the execution should be delayed while the U.S. Supreme Court hears an appeal from Alabama death row inmate David Larry Nelson, who claims execution by lethal injection would be unconstitutionally cruel because of his medical condition, collapsed veins.
The state urged the appeals court to reject Farrell's argument, saying the court's Monday decision properly turned down Williams' attempt to file for an additional federal hearing, according to Timothy Prichard, senior deputy attorney general.
In addition, the appeals court correctly noted that Williams and Roe's claim cannot be presented for the first time at this late date
because it wasn't previously filed in a state court, Prichard said.
Chmielewski's stepdaughter, Dorothy Beverly of Cleveland, planned to witness today's execution. Williams did not request any witnesses, Dean said.
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