Richard Nields

Richard Nields' public defender lawyers told the Ohio Parole Board last Monday that he had been an alcoholic with brain damage when he killed his live-in girlfriend during a 1997 argument in their Finneytown, Ohio home, Cincinnati.com reports.

Nields is scheduled to be executed June 10th.

The AP article, above, also noted the Sixth District Court of Appeals' "being skeptical about Nields' death sentence, noting it barely reached the threshold for a capital charge." The Court of Appeals, however, there also concluded that "a death specification based on an inferential chain of events must still be consistent with the requirement that the death penalty be sparingly, and prudently, applied. See Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 568 (2005) ("Capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit a narrow category of the most serious crimes and whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution.") (quotation marks omitted); see also Kansas v. Marsh, 126 S. Ct. 2516, 2543 (2006) (Souter, J., dissenting) ("[W]ithin the category of capital crimes, the death penalty must be reserved for 'the worst of the worst.'"). At the same time, however, we recognize that a determination of whether this particular murder fits within that 'narrow' category" is a policy matter initially delegated by the state of Ohio to the jury and eventually delegated by the State to its governor to resolve in a fair-minded and even-handed manner." ( Nields v.Bradshaw, 05-401 @ Pp. 16)