Alva Campbell, Jr., is slated to die by lethal injection in the state of Ohio on November 14. The state’s parole board is suggesting that Governor John Kasich reject granting the 69-year-old death row inmate mercy, according to WOSU. On Friday, the board voted 11-1 that the convicted, condemned killer keep his date with death.
Campbell received the death sentence following his conviction for killing an 18-year-old. After a 1997 carjacking, Campbell shot and killed Charles Dials. The death row inmate was already paroled in 1992, following a 20-year sentence after he “killed a man in a Cleveland bar,” WBNS (10 TV) reported.
Killer took gun from sheriff’s deputy and killed teen
On the way to court for a hearing on armed robbery charges on April 2, 1997, Campbell overpowered a county sheriff’s deputy while he was “in a wheelchair feigning paralysis,” WBNS noted. After taking the officer’s gun, he carjacked Dials. He, then, drove with the teen for “several hours.” As Dials was “crouched in the footwell of his own truck,” according to WBNS, Campbell shot Dials in the head.
Ron O’Brien is the Franklin County prosecutor who represented the state in its case against Campbell in 1997. O’Brien said that Campbell is the “worst, most violent criminal” of all the cases he has prosecuted, according to WVXU.
Convicted killer could be third inmate executed by Ohio in three years
If Governor Kasich declines to grant Campbell clemency, Campbell will be the third death row inmate in Ohio to be executed in three years. On September 13, Gary Otte was executed. Ronald Phillips was put to death on July 26. The United States Supreme Court upheld the Ohio’s three-drug capital punishment cocktail, which affected Phillips execution, WVXU reported.
David Stebbins, a public defender, is one of Campbell’s attorneys. He explained to the parole board that Campbell is terminally ill and cited a laundry list of health conditions affecting his client. O’Brien, however, deemed the convicted killer “the poster child for the death penalty,” according to WBNS.
The prosecutor also called it “ironic” that Stebbins brought up Campbell’s chronic health problems while seeking to avert the imposition of Capital Punishment.
After all, Campbell feigned paralysis in 1997, when he murdered Dials.
Condemned inmate relies on health problems as ‘judgement day’ nears
O’Brien stated to the parole board this month that as Campbell’s “judgment day” grew closer, once again he fell back on health problems to facilitate escaping the death penalty, WBNS relayed. He further stated that the killer should not be “permitted” to resort to bad health as way “to escape” dying by lethal injection.
Other killers used health in seeking reprieve from execution
Vernon Madison, 66, was also on Alabama’s death row. He avoided the state imposing capital punishment by also relying on his bad health. Madison’s health condition was dementia following a stroke.
WBNS reported, too, that Madison was granted a stay of execution since he didn’t remember killing and didn’t comprehend the death sentence he received.
In 2008, however, Ohio executed Richard Cooey. His legal challenge to the death sentence was that obesity would “prevent” the state from administering the lethal injection drug cocktail since “viable veins” were hard to find, according to WBNS.
While Campbell admits that he is guilty of murder, WOSU noted, his lawyers contend that “he’s too sick to lie flat on the execution table.”
