Ohio judicial activism

(The Patriot Post) - Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge of Ohio has ruled that the state must change the way criminals are executed, after determining that the three-chemical cocktail used in prior executions might cause discomfort. However, the Supreme Court ruled in April that similar methods of lethal injection are constitutional. Burge merely ignored the ruling and prescribed the use of a single massive dose of barbiturate—a legal first and with no small resemblance to animal euthanasia. “Lethal injection procedure doesn’t provide the quick and painless death required by Ohio law,” he said.

The case resulting in Burge’s soft-hearted decision was brought by Ruben Rivera, charged with murdering a man during a drug-related robbery, and Ronald McCloud, charged with the 2005 rape and murder of a 57-year-old woman in a church bathroom. Neither man has yet been tried. Although we disagree with the notion that those criminals deemed unfit to live should suffer no pain at the end, there is some small comfort in knowing that Ohio’s most cold-blooded murderers will now die like dogs.

As a side note, Burge’s office features prominent posters of murderous commie thug Che Guevara and uber-Leftist presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama side by side. Which got us to thinking: If Burge idolizes a murderer like Guevara, why would he want to execute two others?