Watkins: Set date for Biros’ execution

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

The Trumbull County prosecutor has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date for a condemned killer from Brookfield who mutilated his victim and left her body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins asked the court in a filing Friday to set a new date for 50-year-old Kenneth Biros, who narrowly escaped execution two years ago. Biros was convicted by a jury in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court and sentenced to death.

Watkins’ request follows Tuesday’s ruling by a federal court judge that Ohio’s lethal injection process is flawed but has not been proved unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost ruled against Biros in that decision and lifted a delay Frost had earlier ordered in Biros’ 2007 execution.

Biros killed 22-year-old Tami Engstrom of Hubbard near his home in Brookfield in 1991 after he offered to drive her home from a bar in Masury. He hit her with his car and cut her body into pieces. Parts of her body were found near his home and in two locations in Pennsylvania. Some parts of her body were never found, authorites said. He admitted the killing.

Biros appealed the death sentence on grounds that he would experience severe pain under Ohio’s system of lethal injection, thereby violating the U.S. Constitution’s provisions against cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 159-page ruling, Judge Frost repeatedly said there are problems with the way Ohio executes inmates, both with written protocols and the training the state provides the execution team.

Judge Frost also said it’s possible that further evidence could prove the process constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

But Judge Frost said Biros, has failed for now to demonstrate that he would experience severe pain under the system.

With the decision, Judge Frost found that Ohio’s system meets the standards for a constitutional process laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago.

Biros plans an appeal, said his Cleveland attorney, John Parker.

The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.