YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Attorneys for an Ohio death row prison inmate say Richard Wade Cooey is too fat to be executed constitutionally.
They have filed a lawsuit saying that because Cooey is grossly overweight, his execution by lethal injection, scheduled for Oct. 14, would be difficult and that he would suffer "unnecessary pain" while the death sentence was carried out, making it unconstitutional, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported Tuesday.
The newspaper said Cooey, 41, is 5-feet, 7-inches tall and weighed 275 pounds on May 19, which was the last time he had been on the scales at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. A spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers said state officials were considering legal options.
Cooey and an accomplice were convicted of the rapes and bludgeoning slaying of two Akron, Ohio-area women college students in 1986.
