Death-row inmate denied clemency

April 20, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Gov. Ted Strickland denied clemency Monday to a death-row inmate convicted of strangling a 16-year-old girl in 1988, and a federal appeals court rejected the inmate’s claim that he could be violently allergic to the anesthetic Ohio uses to put inmates to death.

Attorneys for Darryl Durr, who is scheduled to be executed today, immediately filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio made a separate request to delay the execution and allow further DNA testing.

Strickland said in a statement that he had reviewed the court case and agreed with the state Parole Board’s recommendation not to grant clemency.

Durr was transferred Monday from a state prison in Youngstown to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, home to the state’s death chamber.

Durr was convicted of kidnapping 16-year-old Angel Vincent from her home in Elyria on Jan. 31, 1988, while her mother and stepfather were away at a Super Bowl party. He raped and strangled her with a dog chain and hid her body inside two orange traffic barrels placed end-to-end in a Cleveland park, prosecutors said.

Several boys playing in the park discovered her body three months later.

Durr, who pleaded guilty to two other rapes that year, says he is innocent and that he didn’t receive a fair trial.