OHIO Lawyers decide against taking case to U.S. high court

The execution, scheduled for today, is expected to go on as planned.
LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- Lawyers for a man convicted of using a homemade knife to kill a jail guard during a weapons check decided against asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his scheduled execution.
William G. Zuern's attorney, Kate McGarry, declined to say why she wouldn't take the case to the high court, a typical step in death penalty cases. McGarry said she expected the execution to happen as scheduled today.
On Monday, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati rejected two appeals by Zuern. A three-judge panel lifted a stay of execution issued earlier in the day, then a majority of judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted not to allow the full court to consider Zuern's appeal.
Earlier Monday, U.S. District Judge Walter Rice in Dayton ordered the stay to allow the appeals court more time to consider whether Zuern's death sentence is fair.
McGarry had argued that Zuern's lawyers didn't present evidence that could have helped him when he was sentenced.
Gov. Bob Taft denied clemency for Zuern, agreeing Monday with the recommendation last week of the Ohio Parole Board.
On Friday, the appeals court overturned an order issued last month by Rice that the execution be delayed. Rice overturned Zuern's conviction in 2000, but the 6th Circuit reinstated it last July.
1984 stabbing death
Zuern, 45, was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death in the June 9, 1984, stabbing death of jail officer Phillip Pence.
Zuern, formerly of Cincinnati, also is serving a life prison term for his guilty plea to fatally shooting a Cincinnati man.
He had been awaiting trial on that slaying when Hamilton County jail officials received a tip that Zuern had a homemade knife in his cell at the Community Correctional Institution, a Civil War-era prison in Cincinnati known as "the Workhouse."
Zuern was notified that officers were coming to search the cell for the weapon, and when they arrived he stabbed Pence in the chest with a daggerlike piece of metal, officers said.
Zuern arrived Monday afternoon at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility from death row in Mansfield.
He ordered a final dinner, called the "special meal," of mashed potatoes with gravy, lasagna, macaroni and cheese, corn, garlic bread and cherry cheesecake, which were prepared by the prison, said Andrea Dean, a Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman.