Request, clemency denied for Cooey
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram
ELYRIA — Convicted killer Richard Cooey’s efforts to halt his execution scheduled for Tuesday were dealt two serious blows Friday.
Gov. Ted Strickland refused to grant Cooey, 41, clemency for the 1986 murders of University of Akron sorority sisters Dawn McCreery, 22, of North Ridgeville, and Wendy Offredo, 21.
Also Friday, the 9th District Court of Appeals rejected Cooey’s request to join a case in which the appeals court is reviewing a ruling by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge.
Cooey’s attorney, Eric Allen, had asked Thursday to join the appeals in the cases of accused killers Ruben Rivera and Ronald McCloud, who could receive the death penalty if convicted of separate Lorain murders.
Allen did not return a call seeking comment, but he argued in legal documents that Cooey shouldn’t be executed while an Ohio court is reviewing the constitutionality of the death penalty.
“To deny intervention to the individual whose life and death is in every moral respect before this Court would be an affront to basic notions of justice,” Allen wrote.
The appeals court disagreed, saying Cooey was seeking to join the appeal, which has been pending for several months, too late. The judges also wrote that Cooey had presented similar arguments in both state and federal courts and lost.
Burge’s controversial ruling, made after hearing from two lethal injection experts, concluded that the three-drug cocktail used to carry out executions in Ohio was unconstitutional because it didn’t follow a state law that requires executions to be quick and painless.
If the first drug, a sedative, isn’t administered properly, Burge ruled, the condemned inmate may regain consciousness but would be paralyzed and unable to cry out because the second drug had paralyzed him. The dying inmate would be unable to breathe and would also suffer a heart attack induced by the third drug, Burge ruled.
Burge stated that the state couldn’t guarantee that things could not go wrong with the current procedure.
Instead, Burge ordered that if Rivera and McCloud are convicted and sentenced to death, the state may use only the sedative, which the experts agreed was powerful enough to kill on its own, to carry out the executions.
In its appeal, the state has argued that its lethal-injection protocols are humane.
Cooey also has unsuccessfully argued that he is too obese to be executed and offered several versions of what happened the night of the murders in an effort to stall his execution.
Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.
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Filed by Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram October 11th, 2008 in BREAKING, Top Stories. Popularity: 3% |
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Comments
Comment from
THHiggie
October 11, 2008, 6:52 am
I again ask: How many millions of dollars have been wasted on this guy’s defense and incarceration - and food, since he’s now so obese?
Comment from
MistyP
October 11, 2008, 10:27 am
I knew Dawn McCreery and her family and it has to pain them to see this dreg on society dragging this out…yes you are fat, but weren’t those girls to young to have met up with the likes of you and die?
Comment from
kmr
October 11, 2008, 11:09 am
who cares if they suffer? its been said a million times…what about the victims? they are dead because of you. you showed no mercy. you took someones life. if you suffer during your death sentence- so be it.
Comment from
silkskin1960
October 11, 2008, 8:44 pm
Yes the man should pay for what he did. But I ask all of you, will it make you or the girls’s family’s sleep any better than you did one week ago today? Will it bring her back? Will it change anything or any other feeling that you have had over the past years about this guy? I dont think so. Justice has been being served ever since that guy heard that he was WAITING to die. He has been being punished all along and now after his execution his punishment will be over, and yours will continue…SO HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL?
Comment from
Chris
October 11, 2008, 10:15 pm
Let me explain this once again Silkskin.
I knew Dawn, My kids grew up with her and her brother, Bobby. I attended that girls funeral. I watched her parents grieving in the worse way I have ever seen.
This piece of crap we are supposed to care about, murdered these girls in cold blood. Took away their lives, destroyed her parents lives and her brother. Not literally but mentally. They have had to deal with this piece of garbage for 22 years now. 22 years of going to hearing after hearing . Six years ago he beat the system again. The night he was supposed to be excecuted he got off again. He has played this systen for longer than either of those girls lived, thanks to him.
Will it make anything better, will it bring them back? Hell NO, but, this is his punishment for what he did. He killed those girs without any remorse, without any care to what it would do to their families, and now he is trying to deny he did it. He took their daughters and slaughtered them like a piece of meat. He raped them, beat them, strangled them and murdered them. Not an accident, not in a minute of rage, just murdered them for his own selfish reasons. In fact he set it up so he could cause them harm, by dropping the rock off the bridge that stopped their car. So in other words he PLANNED it. He had the balls to destroy 2 families and now he doesn’t have the balls to pay the fiddler. Did those 2 girls get all the advantages and all the chances this piece of crap has? Hell no, they were dead within a few hours after he dropped the rock.
I have no sympathy for him whats so ever. Call it revenge if you wish, I call it JUSTICE. Justice a long time coming for Dawn and Wendy and their families.
Comment from
Jimbob
October 11, 2008, 10:44 pm
I, for one, totally and completely agree with Chris. I believe that if you intentionally kill someone, you should forfeit your life. What kind of sick puke could do something like that, anyway? The only problem I have with his execution is the fact that it has taken way too long.
Comment from
The Raven
October 12, 2008, 7:40 am
Silk…
I still don’t get you…
Cooeys execution is not for me or you, it’s not meant to make anyone feel better. The fact that someone would be pleased that a murderer is executed is a wholly personal matter, none of your business and not factored into when sentencing is handed down.
It is PUNISHMENT meant for him.
Our court system is not designed around “retribution” or “revenge”. It’s designed around the fact that certain offenses get certain punishments. Criminals EARN their punishment.
The victims and their families are allowed to be “satisfied” when a criminal does receive their earned punishment, as does the rest of society.
Some members of our society have this twisted notion that punishment is meant for them only, that it’s unfair and that it’s always meant to be a revenge of sort.
Well it’s not. Again, criminals EARN their punishment, and if you or them don’t like it, then either stop doing the crime or stop coddling them…lest ye be the next victim in line.
You ask how we really feel as if you know. You display a ditsurbing level of arrogance with that question.
You insinuate his waiting for, and anticipating the death penalty is punishment enough? Uh…as soon as we remove the death penalty from the list of possibilities, that form of punishment as you see it will cease to exist. You assert that his punishment “ends” and ours continues? His punishment goes on into eternity, and frankly, I’m not being punished at all…I actually agree with Cooey being executed…I’ll be greatly satisfied that justice will finally be done.
Comment from
silkskin1960
October 12, 2008, 12:33 pm
Any all of you have missed the point. I didnt say he should be spared, I asked WILL IT MAKE ANYBODY FEEL ANY BETTER! Now, judging by the responses I got on this, I guess that would answer my question. But now I have another….since his pain is about to end….WHEN DOES YOURS?
Comment from
silkskin1960
October 12, 2008, 12:37 pm
….and the answer is…….IT WONT! You get what he left you…a life of misery and memories of someone that will no longer exist…….BETTER YOU THAN ME! How does it feel to die twice? I would imagine a great part of all involved died when this happened….Cooey is ending his pain….(not by choice), but you will keep yours………I feel sorry for all of you. And I am thinking that I am probably talking WAY over any of your heads with this…….so….unless you have other plans………HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
Comment from
Chris
October 12, 2008, 2:13 pm
since his pain is about to end….WHEN DOES YOURS?
Well, you were right about 1 thing , it don’t….Thanks to that piece of sh*t it will never end for the families and friends. Let me clue you in on something and stop and think this out in case it’s over your head..
The day this sob is put to death I will celebrate, want to know why? For the simple reason Silk, how many times have b*stards like this been released due to some screw up in the legal system, or some bleeding heart in the legal system? Know ing this piece of sh*t is dead will end any chance of that happening. Any chance of this sob doing this again to someone else.
Your comment about this being over our heads was way out of line on your part. You aren’t the one that has had to deal with this crap for 22 years. Try putting yourself in her parents shoes. I wonder if you have children? How would you like to get a knock on your door and have the cops tell you your child is dead , murdered, and you have to come and identify what is left of her mutilated body? It’s so easy for people that haven’t been in that siuation to judge others. I wonder how you would react? I will be honest with you, I give the McCreery family all the credit in the world, because had that been my daughter, the low life piece of sh*t would have been dead a long time ago. When this happened my husband was so irate at the thought of it all and the thought that could of been our child, Cooey would have never survived court. I’m sure the same thought went through Mr. McCreery’s mind.
Dawn was 21 years old, this b*stard has sat in prison more years than he gave her a chance to live.
So NO you are not way over my head with this….I just get the feeling you are against the death penalty and you are way off base with your opinion. As Raven said, “This is his punishment for what he did”. Don’t like it? Lobby to get the law changed. Personally, I like it. Remember what the Bible tells you, ” An eye for an eye”. So I guess Jesus was wrong too, in your eyes.
Comment from
The Raven
October 12, 2008, 2:28 pm
Silkskin…
I’ve got a question for you…
WHAT ARE YOU REALLY SMOKING?
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