The death row inmate who says he's too fat to be executed

An inmate scheduled for execution this October has claimed he's too fat for execution.

Richard Cooey claims Ohio executioners would have trouble finding his veins and he might not be properly anesthetized.

Lawyers for Richard Cooey argue in a federal lawsuit that Cooey had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and that the problem has been worsened by weight gain.

Too fat for execution?: Richard Cooey in 2003

They cite a document filed by a prison nurse in 2003 that said Cooey had sparse veins and that executioners would need extra time.

"When you start the IV's come 15 minutes early," wrote the nurse who examined Cooey. "I don't have any veins."

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Columbus, also says prison officials have had difficulty drawing blood from Cooey for medical procedures. Cooey is 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 metres) tall and weighs 267 pounds (121 kilograms), according to the lawsuit.

Cooey, 41, was sentenced to die for raping and murdering two University of Akron students in 1986. A federal judge granted him a last-minute reprieve in 2003. In April, he lost a challenge to Ohio's lethal injection process when the U.S. Supreme Court said he had missed a deadline to file a lawsuit.

Cooey's execution is scheduled for October 14. He would be the first inmate put to death in Ohio since Christopher Newton was executed last year for killing a prison cellmate over their chess games.

It would also be the first execution in Ohio since the end of an unofficial national moratorium on executions that began last year while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Kentucky's lethal injection procedure.

Since the court upheld the procedure in April, 16 inmates have been executed around the country.

Attorneys for Cooey in his latest lawsuit say a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could diminish the effectiveness of the first of three drugs Ohio uses in its execution process.

Cooey's use of the drug Topamax, a type of seizure medication, may have created a resistance to thiopental, the drug used to put inmates to sleep before two other lethal drugs are administered, Dr. Mark Heath, a physician hired by the Ohio Public Defender's Office, said in documents filed with the court.

Heath also says Cooey's weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anesthetized.

That's a real concern for Cooey, his public defender, Kelly Culshaw Schneider, said Monday.

"All of the experts agree if the first drug doesn't work, the execution is going to be excruciating," she said.

She said the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has not indicated how they would deal with Cooey's vein problems.

Prisons system spokeswoman Andrea Carson said yesterday she hadn't seen the lawsuit yet and couldn't comment.

Prisons system spokeswoman Andrea Carson and Jim Gravelle, a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, both said yesterday they hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment.