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From: The Ohio Public Radio and Televison Statehouse News Bureau
Fox
Execution
February 12, 2003
Ohio executed convicted killer Richard Fox Wednesday morning.
Listen to Ohio Public Radio’s Rob Schober reporting...
Rob Schober
reports - Real Audio (1:02)
Pro
And Con On Next Execution
January 9, 2003
Next month, Ohio is scheduled to have its 6th execution in four years.
The death row
inmate is convicted murderer Richard E. Fox, but he’s hoping Governor Bob
Taft will
commute his death sentence after hearing a recommendation from the State
Parole
Board. The Board plans to hear arguments over Fox’s clemency request Friday
at
noon. Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen has this preview on the pros
and cons of
“mercy” for Richard Fox.
Bill Cohen reports
- Real Audio (3:57)
Ohio recorded 652 murders in 1989, sentenced eight killers to death that
year,
and has scheduled a Wednesday February 12 execution for one who confessed,
Richard Fox. State law permits execution for the worst murderers, where
aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating factors beyond a reasonable
doubt. The Ohio criminal justice system singled out Richard Fox as its
most
deserving killer of the year because of geography and judicial error.
Fox deceived eighteen-year old Leslie Keckler into accompanying him in
his
car; when she rejected his advances he stabbed and strangled her in a fit
of
anger. He made an inadmissible confession prior to representation by counsel,
disputed the kidnapping charge at trial, and acknowledged his guilt at
the
sentencing. The Wood county prosecutor decided to ask for the death penalty,
and the victim's family approved; prosecutors in many other Ohio counties
would have sought a life term based on his personal history or if the victim's
family objected to execution. Several judges on the Ohio Appeals Court
and
Supreme Court found that the trial panel in sentencing Fox failed to provide
the
required explanation of its reasoning and by law should have imposed a
life
term.
The trial court did not convict Fox of planning the murder, but its opinion
appears to weigh such unproven premeditation to kill as a decisive aggravating
factor more significant than all the mitigating evidence presented--admission
of
guilt, expression of remorse, testimony by numerous witnesses to prior
good
citizenship and community service, sensitive care for his daughter, model
behavior in prison where he rescued a diabetic inmate, expert opinion about
a
psychological disorder, and his six year old child Jessica's well being.
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Craig Wright joined by A.W. Sweeney dissented
from the decision affirming Fox's death sentence, as did Judge James Sherck
on
the Court of Appeals; after leaving the bench Wright opposed the execution
in
statements to the Ohio Parole Authority and other venues. Jeffrey Sutton,
nominated by President Bush to serve on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals,
has petitioned the Ohio Supreme Court to grant Fox a new sentencing hearing.
The American Bar Association has called for a moratorium on executions
because of serious defects in the criminal justice system. Non-partisan
expert
commissions in Illinois and Maryland concluded that their state systems
have not
made reliable judgments about guilt or innocence and which killers should
be
sentenced to death. Two days before leaving office, Republican Governor
George Ryan emptied the Illinois death row and declared: "Our capital system
is
haunted by the demon of error . . . in determining who among the guilty
deserves
to die."
There is neither deterrence nor justice when our state singles out a single
murderer such as Richard Fox as a symbol of our outrage at the 652 killings
committed in 1989. Less than 2 per cent of murders result in death sentences
for
convicted killers. There were 4,830 murders recorded in Ohio from 1983-1990,
81 men were sentenced to death in those years, and since 1999 five convicts
(O.1%) have been executed for those crimes.
The lengthy judicial proceedings, expensive death row incarceration, and
execution of Richard Fox has cost Ohio far more than our taxpayers would
have
expended to imprison him for life; yet even at a time of extraordinary
state and
local budget deficits, money should not be the decisive factor. The cost
to our
collective humanity is far greater.
When Fox petitioned the Ohio Parole Authority for a life term, his daughter
Jessica pleaded for his life; the victim's younger brother Chad argued
for
execution. Unlike the families of victims whose killers were sentenced
to a life
term in 1989, the Keckler family has sustained the false hope that a death
row
inmate's execution will somehow assuage their inconsolable grief. Murder
Victim's Families for Reconciliation and Sister Helen Prejean offer compelling
evidence that executing Richard Fox will create another victim-Jessica
Fox-without remedying the Keckler's terrible loss. How does the state fairly
determine which families see an execution and which must accept life term
for
the killer? The repeated political spectacle of bereaved victims and families
of
the condemned crying before the cameras affronts the dignity of all.
On February 12 an anonymous team of Ohio executioners will administer a
lethal cocktail of three drugs to Richard Fox. Doctors taking the Hippocratic
Oath swear to "Do no harm." After the drugs take effect, an Ohio doctor
screened from witnesses by a curtain will certify that life has ended;
the official
certificate will indicate "homicide" as the cause of death.
Richard Fox should serve a life term for killing Leslie Keckler. His daughter
Jessica lost her mother while a young child, and the state should not take
her
father's life. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, not to the victim's family,
not to
elected prosecutors and politicians. All the other democracies in Western
Christendom have abolished the death penalty, just as they abolished slavery
years before the U.S. followed. After five executions since 1999, Ohio
has 207
inmates on death row and mounting opposition to a flawed legal system and
to a
cycle of violence that produces new victims.
Professor Howard Tolley, Jr., University of Cincinnati
January 14, 2003
The state of Ohio is scheduled to execute Richard Fox, a white man, Feb.
12 for
the 1989 kidnapping and murder of Leslie Keckler in Bowling Green. Experts
repeatedly have diagnosed Fox with severe personality disorders, and the
state
should take notice of this mitigating evidence and commute his death sentence.
According to the prosecution, Fox had been working as a cook at a Bowling
Green restaurant on Sept. 14, 1989 when Keckler came in looking for
employment. He copied her phone number off her application and called her
two
weeks later, referring to himself as a restaurant supplier interviewing
prospective
sales representatives. On the evening of Sept. 26, she went the Holiday
Inn to
interview for the position. Fox allegedly met her there and they left the
hotel in
his car; he then proceeded her stab and strangle her before dumping her
body in a
rural drainage ditch. The details of the tragic incident matched those
of an
abduction from several months earlier; in May 1989, Marla Ritchey met someone
at the Holiday Inn for a job interview, and only survived her kidnapping
by
jumping out of a moving car. She helped police investigators prepare a
composite
police sketch, and investigators quickly identified Fox as the suspect.
Upon his apprehension, Fox waived his Miranda rights and began discussing
the
crime at length. He confessed to murdering Keckler, and provided police
with
further details and evidence of his guilt. A three-judge panel found him
guilty of
aggravated murder and kidnapping and sentenced him to death on June 27,
1990.
During mitigation, Fox’s defense argued that he suffered from personality
disorders and severe depression. Expert doctors found that his personality
disorders seriously impacted his ability to control anger, and his mother
and
sister described his troubled situation from his child life to adulthood.
His father
died before his birth, and his wife died just three years after their marriage.
Dr.
Newton L. P. Jackson, a forensic psychologist, testified that the Keckler
murder
resulted from Fox’s severe personality disorder, which began at a very
early age.
According to Jackson, Fox never learned to trust anyone when he was young,
and
over the years, he developed a dangerously low sense of self-worth.
The state of Ohio should not let convicted criminals walk free because
of their
troubled backgrounds, but it should seek to understand the cycle of violence
ravaging society rather than respond to it with executions. Fox has suffered
throughout his lonely, depressed life, and a commutation of his death sentence
would demonstrate the state’s willingness to help its marginalized people,
rather
than look the other way as they die. Please write the state of Ohio and
request
clemency for Richard Fox.
From the NCADP at: http://www.ncadp.org/html/feb_03_-_ohio.html
EXECUTION OF RICHARD E. FOX
(Columbus) – The Ohio
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) has
confirmed Richard E.
Fox (#227-307) is scheduled for execution by lethal injection on
Wednesday, February 12,
2003 at 10:00 a.m. The execution will take place at the
Southern Ohio Correctional
Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.
Richard Fox was convicted
and sentenced to death for the 1989 aggravated murder of
Leslie Renee Keckler
in Wood County, Ohio.
Background Facts:
Name: Richard Edwin Fox
Race: Caucasian
Date of Birth: 2/3/56
Date of Admission: June 28, 1990
Offense(s): Kidnapping cc/w (10-25 yrs.)
Aggravated Murder (Death)
County of Commitment: Wood
No word has been received
regarding any stay of execution. This advisory is being
distributed in compliance
with the DRC Execution Policy.
For further information,
please contact the DRC Public Information Office at (614)
752-1150.
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