Ohio may limit inmates' last words

COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio has changed its execution-day rules to allow a warden to edit or shorten a condemned inmate’s final statement.

The change comes in the wake of a May execution in which a prisoner recited the Roman Catholic rosary and other prayers for 17 minutes before he died.

Prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said today the agency decided to revisit the rules after Michael Beuke’s extended statement in May.

Walburn says the prisons department didn’t have a problem with Beuke’s words or the length of his statement but recognized there could be problematic statements in the future.

This would be the first such restriction on an inmate’s final statement since Ohio resumed executing inmates in 1999.