Ohio executes man who killed 3 sleeping sons

Associated Press

LUCASVILLE

A man who fatally shot his three sons while they slept in 1982, shortly after his wife filed for divorce, was exe-cuted Tuesday with each of his hands clenched in an obscene gesture.

Reginald Brooks of East Cleveland died at 2:04 p.m., ending a nearly six-month break in the use of capital punishment in Ohio, which often trails only Texas in the number of annual inmate executions.

Dressed in the standard white T-shirt and blue pants, Brooks declined to make a final statement and remained silent as he received the lethal injection. Witnesses, which included his former wife and her sisters, had a view of his left hand, its middle finger raised. Prison officials said he was making the same gesture with his right hand.

Brooks’ actions appear to have been unprecedented since the state resumed executions in 1999. Condemned Ohio inmates in the past have criticized their sentences, professed their innocence, given angry final statements and pleaded to be spared, but never made an obscene gesture.

Brooks’ lawyer said the gesture reflected the inmate’s anger at the final set of court decisions.

“That was his reaction to how things had gone down in the last couple of days,” defense attorney Michael Benza said.

“Even Reggie, the mentally ill, paranoid schizophrenic, understood how wrong the process was,” he said. “It wasn’t to the family, it was to the system that had treated him so badly these last few weeks.”

State and federal courts rejected attorneys’ arguments that Brooks was not mentally competent and that the government hid relevant evidence that could have affected his case.