COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio was poised Tuesday to end a
nearly six-month break in its use of capital punishment by executing a
man who fatally shot his three sons while they slept in 1982, shortly
after his wife filed for divorce.
State and federal courts have
rejected attorneys’ arguments that 66-year-old Reginald Brooks of East
Cleveland is not mentally competent and that the government withheld
relevant evidence that could have affected Brooks’ case.
The Ohio
Supreme Court on Monday rejected Brooks’ request to halt the execution,
and he had appeals pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, he
visited with his brother, clergy and lawyers and was served the special
dinner he requested, including lasagna, garlic bread, ice cream,
chocolate cake, root beer and snacks, prisons spokesman Carlo LoParo
said.
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 the head as they slept at their East Cleveland home
on a Saturday morning. The defense says 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 it 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 in a statement
Monday.
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. 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.
Brooks declined to be interviewed by the parole board.
The
board recommended that Gov. John Kasich deny clemency, and he did.
Kasich previously granted clemency to two death row inmates and
postponed two other executions as a federal judge weighed objections to
Ohio’s execution policy.
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost
denied a delay for Brooks last week 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 Monday to the prison in
Lucasville, where the execution would happen. He would be the oldest
person put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.
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Kantele Franko can be reached at www.twitter.com/kantele10.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.