Court: Don't execute Biros Ohio appeals to Supreme Court

The murderer was transferred from Youngstown to Lucasville on Monday.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A federal appeals court ruled Monday to block Ohio from putting to death a Trumbull County man who killed a woman, cut her up and scattered her remains across two states.
Ohio prison workers still prepared for the execution today of Kenneth Biros, 48, because the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a ruling to allow the lethal injection.
Biros was moved Monday to Ohio's death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, and prison workers will be ready to carry out the execution as scheduled at 10 a.m. today unless the Supreme Court stops it, prisons spokeswoman Andrea Dean said. Biros had been held at the state prison in Youngstown, site of death row.
A 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati refused the state's request to lift a lower court's order against the execution, saying Biros should be able to continue appealing a lawsuit with other inmates arguing that Ohio's method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.
Biros' lawyer, Timothy Sweeney, said if the U.S. Supreme Court allows the execution, Biros still has an appeal before the 6th Circuit that claims he was not convicted of an offense that merits the death penalty. By late Monday, the high court had not addressed the matter.
Other executions have been delayed in the past year because of the lethal-injection lawsuit. However, former cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren was executed Oct. 24 despite his appeal.
The execution would be the first under Gov. Ted Strickland, who denied clemency Friday.
Biros acknowledged he killed Tami Engstrom, 22, but said it was done during a drunken rage.
They met after work in 1991 at a tavern in Masury. Police believe she fled his advances, perhaps ran from his car and fell or was struck or was strangled when Biros tried to quiet her.
A search based on Biros' information led to body parts that had been buried, and some dug up and reburied, near Masury and in adjacent areas of Venango and Butler counties in northwest Pennsylvania.
Her head, right breast and right leg had been severed, intestines were found in a swampy area in Ohio, a leg was broken over a railroad track, the torso was found in a rural area of Pennsylvania and part of a liver was found in Biros' car.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.