[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

July 18



OHIO----execution

Convicted killer Robert Van Hook executed at Lucasville prison



Convicted of the horrific murder of a Cincinnati man, Robert Van Hook died 
by lethal injection on Wednesday in Ohio's 1st execution in more than 10 
months.

The 58-year-olld Van Hook was pronounced dead at the Southern Ohio 
Correctional Facility at 10:44 a.m. after being strapped to the gurney in 
the death chamber and administered the lethal dose of drugs.

He served a violence-plagued 32 years in prison after a death-penalty 
conviction for what now could be considered a hate crime - of the utmost 
violence.

On Feb. 18, 1985, Van Hook met David Self in a gay bar in downtown 
Cincinnati and went home with him. Van Hook's clemency report says he 
lured Self into a vulnerable position and strangled him into 
unconsciousness.

"He then took a paring knife from the kitchen and stabbed the victim 
behind the right ear, aiming the thrust upward toward the brain, 
accompanied by a blade-twisting movement," the report said.

It added that Van Hook then appeared to try to decapitate Self. After 
that, he cut open Self's abdominal cavity, stabbed his liver and heart and 
then "placed a small bottle which contained amyl nitrate, its cap, a 
cigarette butt and the paring knife into the victim's abdominal cavity," 
the report said.

Van Hook stole a few trinkets, checked the refrigerator and finding 
nothing he liked, left. He was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on 
April 1, 1985.

Van Hook raised the defense that he was in a "homosexual panic" when he 
committed the crime, but prosecutors rejected the notion. Illinois and 
California have outlawed the defens

In their unsuccessful bid for clemency, Van Hook's attorneys cited his 
difficult childhood. "From the time of his birth until his arrest, Robert 
Van Hook lived in an environment that can only be described as chaos," 
their report said.

His mother, who had a history of mental illness, abused alcohol and drugs 
and became enmeshed in repeated, mutually abusive relationships. His 
father also drank heavily, beat Van Hook and was a virulent homophobe, the 
lawyers wrote.

Van Hook's father, a musician, introduced his son to alcohol and drugs 
when Van hook was 11 or 12, his lawyers said. At 14, Van Hook moved with 
his father to Florida and eventually ran away. He lived on the streets, 
sometimes supporting himself by having sex for money with men.

In decades in prison, Van Hook amassed a lengthy disciplinary record. It 
includes more than 2 dozen incidents, including stabbing another inmate in 
the face and chest, threatening to kill corrections officers and damaging 
property.

In his clemency report, he said that early in his sentence, he fought to 
protect himself from sexual attackers. But, upon surviving the Lucasville 
prison riot in 1997, Van Hook said he found Jesus and called it "the one 
incident that influenced me to change my life." He wasn't involved in any 
serious incidents for almost a decade, but was later party to 5 more, the 
last in 2017, his clemency report says. Gov. John Kasich denied his 
clemency request at the advice of the parole board.

Self sought a retrial, saying his lawyers didn't have enough time to 
prepare. Separate federal courts ruled in favor of granting Van Hook a new 
trial, but the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 upheld his conviction.

Self's family wanted Van Hook to be executed. His sister, Janet Self, told 
the parole board that her brother's murder reduced him in the public mind 
to nothing more than a gay man in a bar, when in reality he was an 
intelligent, witty person. She also noted that Self was abused by his own 
father and had to face prejudice because he was gay.

Van Hook's execution was the 1st in Ohio in 2018. The last attempted 
execution - of Alva Campbell in November - was called off when corrections 
workers could not find a vein for intravenous drugs. He died earlier this 
year of natural causes.

Gary Otte and Ronald Phillips were executed last year. They were the 1st 
to be killed in Ohio's death chamber after a 3-year moratorium following 
the 2014 execution of Dennis McGuire, 53, who gasped, choked, clenched his 
fists and appeared to struggle against his restraints for about 10 minutes 
before being pronounced dead.

Van Hook was the 56th man to be executed in Ohio since 1999. 2 more 
executions are scheduled for later this year. A total of 137 people remain 
under death sentences in Ohio.

Van Hook becomes the 14th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in 
the USA and the 1,479th overall since the nation resumed executions on 
January 17, 1977.

(sources: Columbus Dispatch & Rick Halperin)