Court upholds stay on Lorraine's execution

January 14, 2012 at 12:10a.m.

COLUMBUS

A federal appeals court has denied the state’s emergency request to lift a stay on the execution of Trumbull County murderer Charles Lorraine.

The decision by the panel of the 6th Circuit lets stand a decision by another federal judge earlier in the week that postponed Lorraine’s lethal injection after state prison officials again failed to follow their own written guidelines for putting inmates to death.

“The state’s arguments in support of the emergency motion to vacate the stay are not well-taken,” the judges wrote in their decision Friday, adding, “Whether slight or significant deviations from the protocol occur, the state’s ongoing conduct requires the federal courts to monitor every execution on an ad hoc basis, because the state cannot be trusted to fulfill its otherwise lawful duty to execute inmates sentenced to death.”

Dan Tierney, spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, said the office is reviewing the decision and considering what to do next. The case appears to be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court for review.

And Alison Elle Aleman, granddaughter of the murder victims and a former prosecutor who worked on death-penalty cases, said Friday she is disappointed by the decision but hopeful the U.S. Supreme Court will allow next week’s execution to move ahead as scheduled.

“Charles Lorraine’s civil rights have been vindicated and protected for 251/2 years,” she said in a phone interview with The Vindicator from her home in California. “He will die a much more peaceful death than my grandmother and grandfather did.”

She added, “[The judges] have forgotten the voices of the dead.”

Lorraine received the death penalty for the 1986 murder of Raymond and Doris Montgomery, the latter confined to a bed at the time of the killing. Lorraine stabbed both multiple times before ransacking their Warren home and using the money and personal items he stole to buy drinks for friends.

Gov. John Kasich this week denied clemency for Lorraine, setting the stage for his execution Wednesday.

But U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost, in a scathing decision the following day, said the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction did not follow its own written procedures for putting inmates to death, even after promising the court that it would.

He noted that DRC officials failed to properly document the preparation of execution drugs and control who participated in the November execution of Reginald Brooks, among other issues.

The procedural lapses came after the state offered assurances that it would follow new protocols it had outlined to the court.

Prosecutors and Aleman said the procedural issues identified by Judge Frost are minor and should not delay Lorraine’s execution.

“This is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” Aleman said, adding, “Why can’t this be corrected in the next couple of days and they go on? I’m not sure why it had to stay something that’s a week away.”

Aleman and her sister, also living in California, had planned to travel to Ohio on Monday to witness the execution.

They and other members of the family, including the now-elderly brother of Raymond Montgomery, are waiting to hear whether they should make the trip or postpone their plans.

“We worry about mercy for the defendant,” Aleman said. “The victims are all but forgotten.”