COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 7 (UPI) -- Ohio Gov. John Kasich refused Thursday to commute the sentence of a man facing execution for killing another inmate in a jailhouse fight.
Clarence Carter, 49, who has spent most of his adult life on death row, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection Tuesday morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported.
He was being held in the Hamilton County jail awaiting sentencing on a previous murder conviction when he beat Johnny Allen to death Dec. 28, 1988, Cincinnati's WLWT-TV reported.
Kasich followed the recommendation of the Ohio Parole Board, which voted unanimously against clemency.
Terry Collins, former director of the state prison system, had urged the governor to spare Carter. In a letter also signed by Alphonse Gerhardstein, a Cincinnati civil rights lawyer, Collins suggested jurors might have sentenced Carter to life without parole if they had had the option at the time.
Carter became involved in "an inmate fight that got tragically out of hand," Collins said.
If his execution takes place on schedule, Carter will be the third inmate put to death this year in Ohio.
