MAHONING VALLEY Official: Death row could fit at lockup

& Aring; decision on moving death row depends on the budget and a lawsuit.
COLUMBUS -- The Ohio State Penitentiary at Youngstown has enough available space and staff to house Ohio's death row, Reginald Wilkinson, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said Wednesday.
Moving death row from the Mansfield Correctional Institution to the Youngstown prison could save the state money, Wilkinson said without elaborating.
Wilkinson's statement comes after reports last week that the prisons department was considering moving death row to the Mahoning Valley.
No decision has been made and prisons officials have labeled the talks as preliminary.
"We've had some discussion about that possibility," Wilkinson said.
According to the prison department, the Youngstown prison has two facilities. The state's so-called supermax facility, with a capacity of 504, houses about 235 inmates, some characterized by the prisons department as the "worst of the worst."
There's also a prison camp that houses 230 minimum-security prisoners who work at the supermax, the department said.
Room at the supermax
There is enough additional space and staff at the supermax facility to accommodate current prisoners and the 199 male prisoners on death row, Wilkinson said.
More may be known on whether death row will be relocated when the department's budget is finished, he said.
Republican Gov. Bob Taft's two-year, $51 billion state budget proposal is pending before the Legislature. State lawmakers have to enact a new spending plan by July 1.
Also, Wilkinson said the prisons department is awaiting resolution of a federal class-action lawsuit involving the Youngstown prison and prisoner conditions. The case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. If the high court rules against the state, it is likely that many prisoners will be transferred out of the supermax, leaving even more cells empty at a facility that is expensive to run. The death row prisoners could fill that void.
Death house would stay
There are 200 inmates in Ohio sentenced to die for their crimes, mostly housed at the Mansfield prison, prisons officials say. One condemned female prisoner is held at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, officials say.
Under the scenario being discussed, the death house, where condemned inmates meet their end by lethal injection, would remain at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, prisons officials have said.
Peter Wray, a spokesman for the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, which represents about 10,000 prison employees across the state, said OCSEA has not been presented with any proposal to move death row.
But Wray said the OCSEA wants to know what would happen to the former death row unit at the Mansfield prison as well as the corrections employees who work there.
"We want to see the details," Wray said.