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| Supreme Court Refuses to Halt Ohio Execution |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 06/15/2001 |
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The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute request on Wednesday by an Ohio death row inmate to halt his execution. Jay Scott, a schizophrenic man whose case has drawn the attention of the European Union, had appealed to the High Court for a stay of execution. He is scheduled to be put to death on Thursday. Scott, who murdered a Cleveland, Ohio delicatessen owner in 1983, had his execution halted minutes before he was to die in May, after a similar last-minute reprieve a month earlier. The EU, in a letter to Ohio Gov. Robert Taft on Tuesday, asked that Scott's life be spared, saying the execution would violate international standards of human rights. "The European Union opposes the death penalty in all cases and promotes universal abolition,'' the letter said. "We seek to ensure that executions in countries which are applying it are carried out in accordance with the minimum standards of human rights.'' The letter was signed by Sweden, the current president of the European Union, Belgium, which will take over the presidency next, and the European Commission. Scott, 48, has a long history of untreated illness including schizophrenia. He would be only the second person put to death in Ohio since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1981. The central issue in his case has been whether his mental illness allows him to comprehend what is happening to him. Scott was found guilty and sentenced to death for the 1983 killing of Cleveland delicatessen owner Vinnie Prince, 74, during a robbery with three other men. Scott's attorneys argued that his original trial lawyers provided inadequate counsel by failing to raise the issue of his mental fitness during the sentencing phase that might have spared his life. |
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