Courts refuse stay for Ohio man

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Options were running out Monday for a man set to be executed for fatally shooting his three sons while they slept after his wife filed for divorce.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and the Ohio Supreme Court issued decisions Monday rejecting requests to halt today’s scheduled lethal injection of Reginald Brooks, of East Cleveland. Brooks, 66, would be the first person put to death in nearly six months in Ohio, which often trails only Texas in the number of inmates executed annually.

Brooks’ attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the Ohio Supreme Court ruling but had earlier indicated that a new-trial request was pending in U.S. District Court if the state appeal failed. A separate appeal was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Monday’s 6th Circuit ruling said Brooks’ defense team is not likely to succeed in its arguments alleging that Brooks is not mentally competent to be executed for the 1982 killings and that the government hid relevant evidence that could have affected his case.

Earlier in the day, a state appeals court denied Brooks’ request for a chance to seek a new trial.

The defense contends Brooks is a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered from mental illness long before he shot his 11-, 15- and 17-year-old sons in their heads as they slept at their East Cleveland home on a Saturday morning. The defense says that Brooks believed his co-workers and wife were poisoning him and that he maintains his innocence, offering conspiracy theories about the killings that involve police, his relatives and a look-alike.

Prosecutors acknowledge Brooks is mentally ill but dispute the notions that his illness caused the murders or makes him incompetent. They say he planned merciless killings, bought a revolver two weeks in advance, confirmed he’d be home alone with the boys, targeted them when they wouldn’t resist and fled on a bus with a suitcase containing a birth certificate and personal items that could help him start a new life.

“It is a travesty that Reginald Brooks has lived so long on death row after cruelly shooting his three boys to death,” Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason said Monday in a statement. “Justice demands that Brooks’ execution go forward tomorrow.”

Prosecutors say Brooks’ insistence that he’s innocent is a sign that he knows his rights, not that he’s delusional.

Brooks was found competent for trial, and a three-judge panel convicted him.

Defense attorneys have argued that prosecutors withheld information that would have supported a mental health defense and led the court to rule differently.

Former Judge Harry Hanna, one of the three on the panel, told the Ohio Parole Board he would not have voted for the death penalty if he’d had information from police reports that were provided to the defense more recently.

Defense attorney Michael Benza said Monday: “We’re very disappointed that the state courts continue to say that this information was something that the defense has had.”

Brooks declined to be interviewed by the parole board.

The board recommended that Republican Gov. John Kasich deny clemency, and he did. Kasich previously granted clemency to two death-row inmates and postponed two other executions as U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost weighed objections to Ohio’s execution policy.

Judge Frost earlier this month had denied a delay for Brooks and ruled in favor of Ohio’s execution rules, saying the state addressed his concerns about the process.

Beverly Brooks, who found her sons dead in bed when she returned from work, told the parole board she believes the killings were an act of revenge for her divorce filing, not the result of mental illness, and she supports the execution. She is among those scheduled to witness it.

Reginald Brooks was taken to the prison in Lucasville on Monday morning, prisons spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

Brooks would be the oldest person put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.

Brooks spent the day listening to music and met with his brother, clergy and lawyers. He was served a special dinner Monday that included lasagna, garlic bread, ice cream, chocolate cake and root beer, along with several snacks, LoParo said.