impending execution//volunteer

[Anja]

Death-row inmate fights to keep date with destiny----Ohio's latest
'Volunteer' scheduled for July 12 execution


Rocky Barton would rather die now than spend his next two decades on
Ohio's death row fighting execution.

Before the former southwest Ohio man twice shot his 44-year-old wife,
Kimbirli Jo, he vowed he never would return to prison. As his wife lay
dying, he placed the barrel of the shotgun under his chin and fired.

After his conviction months later, Barton, his face surgically rebuilt
after the shotgun blast, urged the jury to sentence him to death. He
refused to cooperate with his own clemency hearing.

And tomorrow, Barton plans to urge a Warren County judge to fire his
court-appointed attorney, Christopher Pagan, because he's questioned
Barton's competency to make the decision to accelerate his execution by
becoming the fifth Ohio inmate to prematurely end his appeals.

"I can handle the prison life," Barton told The Blade during an interview
conducted last week on behalf of the Ohio Legislative Correspondents
Association.

"It's living with the guilt," he said. "I figure, why should I lay around
in here for 10 or 20 years fighting it when it's eating me up inside."

If his execution is carried out on July 12 as scheduled, it would occur
less than three years and six months after his crime. That would be a
record in a state where appeals take an average of 16 years.

Barton, 49, is one of 39 death-row inmates who remain at Mansfield
Correctional Institution. Because of mental-health issues, they have not
been moved to the new death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary at
Youngstown.

"There's not much you can do," he said. "Exercise a little bit, watch TV,
and read."

Once a day, he is permitted in the enclosed recreation yard adjacent to
his prison unit where he and 4 other death-row inmates play basketball and
handball. He said he has visitors - his parents, sisters, uncles, the
prison chaplain - but his routine is mostly meals, reading the Bible,
pull-ups, push-ups, and sit-ups.

He said he had more freedom when he served 10 years in prison in Kentucky
for the attempted murder of his second ex-wife, whom he refused to
discuss. He was in the prison's general population there before he was
paroled and returned to Ohio.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Jim Canepa said he doesn't believe life on
death row is responsible for Barton's decision to pursue execution.

"Death row, if you were to look at creature comforts and accessibility to
things the other population doesn't have, is the preferred place to be,"
he said. "Compared to the general population, you're less likely to be
victimized by other inmates. You have better access to experts for health
care, medical needs, [and] lawyering. For better or worse, you're
'special.' "

Barton said he deserves to die.

"I think it's a very terrible thing that I done," he said. "It was a
senseless murder. My wife was a beautiful person. She didn't deserve to
die."

Kimbirli, a close friend since high school, became Barton's 4th wife while
he was serving time in Kentucky.

On Jan. 16, 2003, after she informed him she was leaving and returned to
their house in Waynesville, Ohio, to retrieve her belongings, Barton
emerged from the garage carrying a shotgun.

His uncle, whom he'd talked to earlier on the phone, also arrived at the
house.

Barton said his original plan was to kill himself in front of Kimbirli,
and he said he can't explain today why he instead turned the gun on her.
He dropped to his knees in front of his uncle's pickup, said, "I told you
I was insane," placed the barrel under his chin, and fired.

He pointed inside his mouth to show the trajectory of the shotgun blast.

"I blowed out all my teeth except for 11," he said. "I had four major
surgeries for reconstructing my face. I have two metal plates holding my
eyeballs in the socket. ... I got a cadaver chin, so I got pins, and
wires, and screws connecting that."

Mr. Pagan, Barton's Middletown attorney, has forged ahead with the
competency hearing against Barton's wishes. He said he knows he's flirting
with an ethical line.

"I know Rocky wants the execution, but I've also seen the psychological
records produced at the prison, and those indicate that he has major
depression with psychotic features and hallucinations," he said. "He's
medicated and has attempted suicide. He has given me different indications
of whether I should defend the case."

When death-row inmates get together in the recreation yard, they sometimes
share information, including what happened on May 2 when Joseph Lewis
Clark, a 57-year-old Toledo native, was executed after spending 22 years
on death row.

The execution team struggled to find usable veins in Clark's arms, and the
one intravenous line it proceeded with collapsed early in the process.

Clark raised and shook his head, repeatedly saying, "It don't work."
Witnesses could hear him moaning and groaning for several minutes even
after the curtain separating them from the execution chamber had been
closed.

Even as Clark's execution has fueled efforts to challenge the
constitutionality of the lethal-injection process, along comes Barton,
who, unlike Clark, is a "volunteer."

Barton didn't know Clark, and he said Clark's experience has not prompted
him to reconsider his decision.

"I got good veins," he said. "I understand he was a drug addict and his
veins collapsed. All during my surgeries, I had good veins. They never
really had no trouble except for there at the end one time they had
trouble finding a vein on me, but that was after months of having needles
stuck in me."

(source: Toledo Blade)

[SoulTrainOz]

Death-row inmate refuses to appeal; July 12 date set

A man who has refused to use the appeal process to delay his execution for murdering his wife told a judge Monday that he is ready to die.

Warren County Common Pleas Judge Neal Bronson said he would rule by Wednesday.

Rocky Barton, 49, is scheduled to be executed July 12 for the shotgun murder of his wife Kimbirli Jo Barton, 44, at their home near Waynesville in January 2003. The Ohio Supreme Court ordered the hearing to determine whether Barton is competent to waive appeals and if he should have a psychiatric evaluation.

"I got caught with the smoking gun," said Barton.

"I committed a senseless crime," he said. "I took the life of a beautiful person. There's not a day goes by I don't think about what I done."

(source: Dayton Daily News)

[SoulTrainOz]

A man who has refused to use the appeal process to delay his execution for murdering his wife told a judge Monday that he was ready to die.

"This court sentenced me to death. All I'm asking is to go ahead and carry out that sentence," Rocky Barton said during a court hearing.

Warren County Common Pleas Judge Neal Bronson said he would rule on the request by Wednesday.

Barton, 49, is scheduled to be executed July 12 for murdering his wife at their home near Waynesville, about 35 miles northeast of Cincinnati, in January 2003. The Ohio Supreme Court ordered the hearing to determine whether Barton is competent to waive further appeals and if he should have a psychiatric evaluation.

Barton was convicted of killing Kimbirli Jo Barton, 44, with 2 shotgun blasts as his uncle and 17-year-old stepdaughter watched.

"I got caught with the smoking gun," said Barton.

He said he felt remorse and missed his wife.

"I committed a senseless crime," he said. "I took the life of a beautiful person. There's not a day goes by I don't think about what I done."

Barton and his wife had known each other most of their lives but had married only 2 years before the shooting. Prosecutors described Barton as a controlling and possessive husband who decided to kill his wife when she told him she was leaving him.

Barton admitted hiding a shotgun in a garage and shooting his wife when she arrived at their home to pick up some of her belongings.

Barton shot himself in the face after shooting his wife. He has said he planned to kill himself in front of her and that shooting her was a "spur-of-the-moment thing."

"It was an act of anger," Barton said in a death row interview last week. "Evidently it was not too thought out, or I wouldn't be where I am today."

However, Barton told the judge Monday that he was fully aware of what he was asking the court to do and that he thought the execution was inevitable and might as well proceed.

"I'd rather go ahead and be executed now than wait 10 or 12 years," Barton said. "To delay it any longer would be cruel and unusual punishment for my family - and probably for her family."

The judge asked Barton if he knew the consequences of what he was asking.

"I realize if the execution is carried out, I will be dead," Barton said. "I just don't want the execution delayed. It's already gone on long enough."

Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel asked Barton if he felt he deserved to die.

"Yes, I do," Barton said in a firm voice.

The judge asked Barton if he was sure he knew why he was in court, and Barton said yes. Bronson then asked him to elaborate.

"To drop my appeals and be executed in 9 days," Barton said.

Barton has refused to speak on his own behalf in previous hearings, including an Ohio Parole Board hearing last month in which the board recommended that Gov. Bob Taft deny clemency.

At his trial, Barton urged the jury to recommend death rather than life in prison.

"My attorneys advised me to beg for my life," Barton said then. "I can't do that.

"I strongly believe in the death penalty. And for the ruthless,
cold-blooded act that I committed, if I was sitting over there, I'd hold out for the death penalty."

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Scheduled For Execution Next Week

Rocky Barten was ruled competent to refuse further appeals that could delay his execution.

Warren County Judge Neal Bronson made the ruling that will keep Barton's July 12 execution on schedule.

"In each of his discussions with counsel or the court, he gave a
consistent understanding of the proximity and finality of his death," said Bronson. "He consistently gave an explanation of why his execution made sense to him."

Barten, 49, was convicted of murdering his wife, 44-year-old Kimbirli Jo Barton, at their Waynesville home in Jan. 2003 as his uncle and 17-year-old daughter watched. At trial, he urged the jury to recommend the death penalty.

"I committed a senseless crime," Barton said. "I took the life of a
beautiful person. There's not a day goes by (that) I don't think about what I done." The Ohio Supreme Court ordered a hearing Monday to determine if Barton was competent enough to waive further appeals and to see if he needed a psychiatric evaluation.

Judge Neal Bronson questioned Barton at the hearing on Monday and issued his ruling Wednesday.

Prosecutors described Barton as a controlling and possessive husband who decided to kill his wife when she told him she was leaving him.

(source: ChannelCincinnati)

[SoulTrainOz]

case, judge rules

An inmate who says he deserves to die for killing his wife is competent to waive further appeals, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

Rocky Barton, 49, is set to die by injection July 12 for killing his wife, Kimbirli Jo Barton, 44, at their home near Waynesville, about 35 miles northeast of Cincinnati, in January 2003 as his uncle and 17-year-old stepdaughter watched.

"In each of his discussions with counsel or the court, he gave a
consistent understanding of the proximity and finality of his death," Judge Neal Bronson of Warren County Common Pleas Court said in his ruling. "He consistently gave an explanation of why his execution made sense to him."

The Ohio Supreme Court ordered the hearing on Monday to determine if Barton was competent to waive appeals and if he should have a psychiatric evaluation.

"I committed a senseless crime," Barton said at Monday's hearing. "I took the life of a beautiful person. There's not a day goes by I don't think about what I done."

Prosecutors described Barton as a controlling and possessive husband who decided to kill his wife when she told him she was leaving him.

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Warren County man demanded speedy path to death after 2003 slaying.

At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Rocky Barton will get his wish for his life to end.

Barton, now 49, wanted to die in January 2003 after he shot and killed his wife, Kimbirli, with a shotgun in their Wayne Twp. driveway and then put the barrel of the gun to his chin and fired.

Now Barton is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.

He's spending his last days on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution this weekend by visiting with family members until he's transported to Lucasville early this week, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

Barton will select his last meal at 4 p.m. Tuesday and say goodbye to family members at 8 a.m. Wednesday. He'll be in a holding cell with prison staff until the execution begins at 10 a.m., Dean said.

Barton said he's ready to die for his wife's murder.

"I feel I made my life right with God and I am ready to go,'' he said during a competency hearing on Monday in Warren County Common Pleas Court in Lebanon. "I committed a senseless crime. Not a day goes by I don't think about what I've done.''

Barton was sentenced to death in October 2003.

Kimbirli's family members said that Barton's sentence should be carried out as scheduled.

"Nothing they do to him will bring her back,'' said Kimbirli's daughter, Tiffany Reising of Lebanon. "I think justice will be served."

"After he's gone, it's not going to be over with,'' she said. "The world lost a beautiful person.''

(source: Dayton Daily News)

[SoulTrainOz]

Warren County Man Convicted Of Killing His Wife

Rocky Barton beat one of his ex-wives with a shotgun, stabbed her 3 times, cut her throat and left her for dead. She survived.

Kimbirli Jo Barton -- Rocky Barton's fourth wife -- wasn't so lucky. He killed her with a point-blank blast from a .410-gauge shotgun.

For that, he is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.

"Without question, Mr. Barton is a repeat violent offender of serious magnitude," the Ohio Parole Board concluded in recommending against clemency.

Barton himself has said repeatedly he deserves to die and has rejected legal appeals that would have delayed his execution.

The 49-year-old has a history of arrests on burglary, assault, drug, drunken driving and domestic violence charges.

He served 8 years of a 15-year sentence in Kentucky for the attempted murder of his 2nd wife. He was paroled but was returned to prison for another year after his third wife -- while trying to divorce him -- accused him of domestic violence and threatening her life.

While still in prison, he married fourth wife Kimbirli Jo Barton, whom he had known since they attended Springboro High School in the 1970s, and they launched an often-stormy 1-year marriage.

Within months of his release from prison, Barton was arrested in September 2002, accused of threatening his new wife and pushing her around, but she refused to file charges. 4 months later, on Jan. 16, 2003, she said she was leaving and Barton went into a rage.

"I still can't figure out what happened or why," an uncle, Paul Barton, said last week. "I thought Rocky was fine."

Barton called the print shop where he worked and said he wouldn't be in that day because of a family emergency. He made numerous threatening calls to his wife over the next several hours, but later convinced her it was safe to return to their home near Waynesville to pick up some of her belongings.

When she arrived with her youngest daughter and one of Barton's uncles, Barton retrieved a shotgun he had put in a garage and ran toward the woman.

His 1st shot wounded her in the shoulder, and she tried to crawl toward her daughter.

Rocky Barton's 2nd shot - from about one or two feet away - hit his 44-year-old wife in the back and killed her.

"I couldn't stand the thought of living without her," Barton said in a death-row interview last month. "I was more in love than I've ever been in my life."

Prosecutors portrayed Barton as a possessive and controlling husband.

"I was just a jealous husband," he said.

After shooting his wife, Barton put the barrel of the shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger, resulting in extensive wounds to his chin and face.

"I blowed out all my teeth except for 11," Barton said. "I had 4 major surgeries for reconstructing my face."

Barton said he planned to kill himself in front of his wife, and that
shooting her was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"I remember shooting my wife, but I just don't know what was clicking in my head at the time that I pulled the trigger," Barton said.

Barton has said many times that he deserved to die for his act. At his trial in September 2003 for aggravated murder, he urged jurors to recommend the death sentence.

"My attorneys advised me to beg for my life," Barton said then. "I can't do that.

"I strongly believe in the death penalty. And for the ruthless,
cold-blooded act that I committed, if I was sitting over there, I'd hold out for the death penalty."

Warren County Common Pleas Judge Neal Bronson imposed the death sentence on Oct. 10, 2003. Barton disavowed the appeals process, so there was only the mandatory appeal that goes to the Ohio Supreme Court, and the court upheld the sentence.

Over his objection, Barton's lead attorney filed a motion in May
requesting a psychiatric evaluation, saying he had a responsibility to safeguard Barton's rights.

Barton, who had refused to asked the Parole Board for clemency, threatened to have the attorney removed.

The Supreme Court ordered a hearing on the motion, which has held July 3. Barton said he felt remorse and wanted to die.

2 days later, Bronson denied the motion for a mental evaluation, saying Barton was competent to waive his right to appeals.

"In each of his discussions with counsel or the court, he gave a
consistent understanding of the proximity and finality of his death," Bronson wrote.

"He consistently gave an explanation of why his execution made sense to him."

Barton said at the hearing that his family and his wife's family had
accepted his decision to ask that the execution be carried out without delay.

"I loved him at one time in my life, but it's over," said Tiffany Reising, one of Kimbirli Jo Barton's daughters. "He died that day to my family. He died that day, so he's been gone for 3 years."

Barton said he regretted killing his wife, whom he called a beautiful person, and he hoped her family would forgive him. And he had this advice to others:

"The world moves at a fast pace, and anger's something that is hard to harness so, I mean, if you got an anger problem, get help," Barton said.

In his death-row interview, Barton said he wasn't worried about the lethal injection method of execution, even thought the state's most recent execution was delayed about 90 minutes when the medical staff at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville had trouble finding a 2nd suitable vein to install a backup shunt.

"I got good veins," Barton said.

Because of the difficulty in the May 2 execution of Joseph Clark, new guidelines have been put into effect to ensure that 2 suitable injection sites are found and that the veins stay open once entryways are inserted.

(source: The Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Tomorrow

An Ohio man who says he deserved to die for killing his wife has arrived at the prison that houses the state's death chamber. Forty-nine-year-old Rocky Barton is set to die by injection tomorrow for the 2003 killing of Kimbirli Jo Barton at the couple's home near Waynesville, about 35 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

Barton was transferred this morning from a prison in Mansfield to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Prison officials say Barton has been reading a Bible and watching
television.

A Warren County judge ruled last week that Barton was competent to give up his appeals, and Barton did not seek clemency from Governor Bob Taft.

Barton would be the 3rd inmate executed this year and the 22nd since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Condemned killer Rocky Barton of Warren County died Wednesday morning by lethal injection.

He was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m. Barton, 49, was executed for the murder of his wife, Kimbirli Barton, on Jan. 16, 2003.

Earlier Wednesday, he had held hands with family members through cell bars at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville.

"They are having a very emotional visit," said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Barton told prison officials he was a little nervous, but he said he is "at peace with what is going to happen this morning," according to Dean.

Warren County prosecutor's officials were transporting county jail inmate Jamie Reising to the Lucasville to witness the execution.

Reising, in jail on drug charges, was at her mother's side as Barton killed her with 2 shotgun blasts at their Waynesville area home as she tried to get her possessions and leave him.

Reising and her brother, Joseph Reynolds, are to witness the execution on behalf of the victim's family. Barton's father, mother and uncle also are to witness.

Prison officials have been examining Barton's veins Tuesday and Wednesday to make sure there is no repeat of a May 2 execution, in which the execution team could not find viable veins, delaying inmate Joseph Clark's death by 90 minutes.

"He appears to have fine veins, so we don't anticipate any trouble with that this morning," Dean said.

Barton ate all of his "special meal", Dean said.

He phoned his grandmother and a brother who is in the Warren County Jail Tuesday night. He awoke at 4:47 Wednesday morning, showered, dressed and ate breakfast.

Barton becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Ohio and the 22nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. Barton had been on death row for less than 3 years, the shortest term from conviction to execution in modern times. He's the 5th "volunteer" to waive his rights to appeal.

There are 194 men and 2 women on Ohio's death row.

Barton becomes the 27th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1031st overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: Dayton Daily News & Rick Halperin)

[SoulTrainOz]

protocol

Ohio executed the 1st person today using new injection guidelines adopted after the last execution was plagued with problems.

The veins of Rocky Barton, who shot his wife to death because she wanted to leave him, were closely examined several times before he died at 10:27 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. The state's lethal injection protocol was changed after Joseph Clark's execution in May, which was held up 90 minutes when prison staff struggled to find a viable vein and one they used collapsed.

Barton, 49, said he deserved to die and gave up his appeals that could have delayed his execution for years.

The state now requires staff to make every effort to find 2 injection sites and use a new method to make sure the veins stay open once entryways are inserted. The process appeared to go smoothly Wednesday.

Previously, examinations of inmates before an execution consisted of a visual check of the inmate and a review of his medical file, according to a June report by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. A prisons spokeswoman said before the execution that Barton appeared to have good veins.

The May execution, when Clark asked prison staff to find another way to kill him, drew criticism from death penalty opponents who said the problems illustrated why the method of capital punishment is cruel and unconstitutional. It came amid a growing national debate about lethal injection.

Barton was convicted of aggravated murder for shooting Kimbirli Jo Barton, 44, up close with a shotgun in 2003 outside their farmhouse while his 17-year-old stepdaughter watched. She had returned to get some belongings from the home in Waynesville, about 35 miles northeast of Cincinnati.

In his final statement, Barton turned to Kimbirli Jo's son and two
daughters and said: "I'm sorry for what I done, sorry for killing your momma and for what I done to you."

Kimbirli Jo Barton died in the arms of her daughter, Jamie Reising, who was allowed to leave a jail in Lebanon across the state to watch the execution. Reising is being held on a drug trafficking charge.

Barton told Kimbirli Jo's son, Joseph Reynolds, not to let anger and hate toward him destroy his life, and he told his own mother, father and uncle he was sorry for bringing shame to the family.

Just before the lethal drugs were administered, Barton said, "As Gary Gilmore said, 'Let's do it.'"

Gilmore, who was convicted in Utah of shooting 2 people, said the same thing before he became the 1st person put to death after a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty was legal. He was executed Jan. 17, 1977 by firing squad.

Barton, who did not seek clemency from Gov. Bob Taft, had asked the trial court for sentence him to death. A judge ruled last week that he was competent to give up his appeals.

After shooting his wife, he fired the shotgun under his chin, causing extensive wounds to his face.

Prosecutors portrayed Barton as a possessive and controlling husband.

He served 8 years in Kentucky on an attempted murder charge for beating his 2nd wife with a shotgun, stabbing her 3 times and cutting her throat. He was paroled but was returned to prison for another year after his 3rd wife - while trying to divorce him - accused him of domestic violence and threatening her life.

He and Kimbirli Jo Barton attended high school together and married while he was in prison. Within months of his release, Barton was arrested in 2002, accused of threatening his new wife and pushing her around, but she refused to file charges.

4 months later, she said she was leaving and Barton went into a rage.

He made numerous threatening calls to his wife over the next several hours while she was at work, but later convinced her it was safe to return to their home to pick up some of her things.

When she arrived, Barton ran toward her and first shot her in shoulder. She tried to crawl toward her daughter, but he shot her again in the back.

Barton was the 3rd inmate executed this year and the 22nd since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. (source: Associated Press)