Too Fat to Execute?

I've got some ideas how to deal with this:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A death row inmate scheduled for execution in October says he's so fat that Ohio executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.

Lawyers for Richard Cooey argue in a federal lawsuit that Cooey had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and that the problem has been worsened by weight gain.

Cooey, 41, was sentenced to die for raping and murdering two female University of Akron students in 1986. After a federal judge granted Cooey a last-minute reprieve in 2003, Cooey was returned to death row. In April, he lost a challenge to Ohio's lethal injection process when the U.S. Supreme Court said he had missed a deadline to file a lawsuit.

Cooey's attorneys cite a document filed by a prison nurse in 2003 that said Cooey had sparse veins and that executioners would need extra time.

"When you start the IV's come 15 minutes early," wrote the nurse who examined Cooey. "I don't have any veins."

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Columbus, also says prison officials have had difficulty drawing blood from Cooey for medical procedures. Cooey is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 267 pounds, according to the lawsuit.

Cooey's execution is scheduled for Oct. 14. He would be the first inmate put to death in Ohio since Christopher Newton was executed last year for killing a prison cellmate over their chess games.

It would also be the first execution in Ohio since the end of an unofficial national moratorium on executions that began lV injection procedure.

Since the court upheld the procedure in April, 16 inmates have been executed around the country.

Attorneys for Cooey in his latest lawsuit say a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could diminish the effectiveness of the first of three drugs Ohio uses in its execution process.

Cooey's use of the drug Topamax, a type of seizure medication, may have created a resistance to thiopental, the drug used to put inmates to sleep before two other lethal drugs are administered, Dr. Mark Heath, a physician hired by the Ohio Public Defender's Office, said in documents filed with the court.

Heath also says Cooey's weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anesthetized.

That's a real concern for Cooey, his public defender, Kelly Culshaw Schneider, said Monday.

"All of the experts agree if the first drug doesn't work, the execution is going to be excruciating," she said.

She said the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has not indicated how they would deal with Cooey's vein problems.

There's always the "bullet to the back of the head" method. No veins required, no anesthesia, and very effective.