Monday, November 14, 2011

The Ohio Supreme Court has denied a request to halt the execution of a black man who fatally shot his three sons while they slept in 1982

The high court has rejected African-American Reginald Brooks' request just hours after a state appeals court denied his appeal for a chance to seek a new trial. An attorney for the 66-year-old Brooks, of East Cleveland, had indicated earlier that a new-trial request was pending in U.S. District Court if the state appeal failed. A separate appeal was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The defense contends that 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 that Brooks believed that 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 that Brooks is mentally ill but dispute the notions that it caused the murders or makes him incompetent. They say that 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. Brooks would be the oldest person put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.

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