Ohio gun homicides soar after legislature bans local gun laws

The mass shooters' weapon of choice is the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle dubbed "America's most popular rifle" by the gun lobbyist organization the NRA. It's also the most popular rifle among mass shooters, according to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. 

The AR-15 made appearances in mass shootings at a school in Parkland, Florida, a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a country music festival in Las Vegas, an Orlando, Florida night club, a workplace in San Bernardino, California, and so on. 

The scope of such mass tragedies often are followed by impassioned debates about gun rights, and what, if anything, communities can do to restrict access to firearms.

Such discussions by local lawmakers in Ohio are largely moot.

In 2006, the state's rural legislators rewrote the laws for urban areas where most of the gun murders occur. In doing so, they wiped away dozens of municipal ordinances enacted by cities like Cleveland.

Since then gun homicides are up 60 percent in Ohio's six big urban counties, and 39 percent in throughout the rest of the state.

The state law change cannot directly be linked to the increase in gun deaths (which are also up nationally), but it leaves local leaders powerless to experiment with laws that might make their communities safer.

The change banned local laws more restrictive than state gun laws.

The Ohio Supreme Court in 2010 upheld the new state law, wiping out about 80 local gun laws, including assault-weapons bans in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Toledo.

To advocates such as the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, changes in gun laws -  from the ban on local ordinances to a loosening of concealed weapon restrictions - are tied to the increase in gun deaths: "The reason to me is that they (guns) are more accessible," founder Toby Hoover said.

But to the Buckeye Firearms Association, local ordinances are burdens to law-abiding citizens traveling from one city to another, and did little to deter crime: "The only thing any city could ever do was make a crime that is a misdemeanor. ... With state law, almost everything is a felony, more jail time and higher fines,"  the association's president, Jim Irvine said during an interview with cleveland.com earlier this year.

Rural/urban divide

What state lawmakers did in 2006 was the rarest of circumstances. The Republican majority, with key help from some Democrats, voted to override a veto by their party's own governor, Republican Gov. Bob Taft.

Yes, there was a strong divide along political lines. Republicans in the Ohio House and Senate voted 75-4 in favor of overriding the veto; the vote in favor of the override was 17-29 among Democrats in the two chambers.

But perhaps more significant was the divide between urban and rural legislators, regardless of party affiliation.

State senators and representatives in largely rural parts of Ohio and smaller towns carried the day on a law that disproportionately impacted urban communities.

They voted nearly as a bloc to prevent cities from making decisions on gun laws at the local level. While any city or village of any size could previously have enacted tougher restrictions than the state, this was largely a big-city issue.

The veto override 

Taft, who was raised in Cincinnati and once served as a Hamilton County commissioner, had the backing in his fight against the law from most lawmakers in urban areas.

Among those on the governor's side was Republican state Sen. Steve Stivers of the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington, now a member of Congress, and Lorain County Republican state Sen. Jeffry Armbruster.

But that urban support wasn't enough to prevent the override of Taft's veto. The rural, small town and, in some cases, suburban vote carried the day - the rights of cities to tackle gun laws at the local level were stripped away and hailed as a victory by the National Rifle Association.

14,882 deaths and counting 

Since then, at least 14,882 Ohioans have been killed by gunfire, the latest Ohio Department of Health records show, including partial data for this year. At least 5,334 gun deaths were homicides, the second leading cause behind suicides (9,079).

The trend is heading the wrong way.

Gun homicides were up 54 percent last year over 2007, an increase from 404 to 622 statewide, according to preliminary data for 2017.

Counting all gun deaths, including suicides, accidents, police shootings and undetermined cases, the number was up 47 percent from 1,085 in 2007 to 1,591 last year.

It is a particularly big issue in Ohio's urban areas.

Ohio's six largest counties - the places where opposition was greatest to the change enacted by the 2006 law - account for 42 percent of the population but 72 percent of the gun homicides from 2007 through 2017. (State records are based on where a person resided, not necessarily where the shooting occurred.)

Gun homicides up in urban counties 

Gun homicides were up last year over 2007 in five of the six counties:

Cuyahoga County (which includes Cleveland) - gun homicides totaled 142 last year, up from 98 in 2007.

Franklin County (Columbus) - 128 last year, up from 60 in 2007.

Hamilton County (Cincinnati) - 74 last year, up from 64 in 2007.

Montgomery County (Dayton) - 39 last year, down from 37 in 2007.

Lucas County (Toledo) - 33 last year, up from 11 in 2007.

Summit County (Akron) - 35 last year, up from 11 in 2007.

For all firearm deaths, including accidents and suicides, the divide is not as wide. The six big counties with 42 percent of the population accounted 51 percent of the reported firearm deaths from 2007 through 2017.

The total gun deaths were up last year in each of the six largest counties from 2007, including highs of 227 in Cuyahoga County and 216 in Franklin County - Ohio's two biggest counties.

 Increase in deaths not just an urban issue

Though the highest per-capita gun death rates are in the urban counties, they increased in less populated parts of the state as well, from 2007 to 2017.

Homicides

Up 60 percent in the six large urban counties to 451 in 2017.

Up 39 percent in the other 82 counties to 171 in 2017.

Suicides

Up 31 percent in the six largest counties to 345 in 2017.

Up 50 percent in the other 82 counties to 575 in 2017.

Total (including accidents, police shootings, undetermined)

Up 46 percent in the six largest counties to 813 in the 2017.

Up 48 percent in the other 82 counties to 778 in 2017.

A solution? 

Hoover, from the Coalition Against Gun Violence, believes a return to local control could help, even if local laws can only be misdemeanors with shorter jail time and smaller fines than felonies.

"People want to be law abiding and go along with what the (local) culture accepts," Hoover said during an interview. "If you have an ordinance that says no assault weapons, people will be less likely have an assault weapon."

Irvine, from the Buckeye Firearms, views suicides as a mental health issue unrelated to gun laws, but offers an alternative to reducing homicides.

"If you want to reduce crime, it's a timely arrest of a criminal, prosecution and lengthy prison sentences," Irvine said.

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GateHouse: President seeks to amend the Constitution by executive order

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

November 3, 2018

On the eve of the midterm elections, the president has promised to end birthright citizenship embodied in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The most recent amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1992, some 202 years after it was proposed by the first Congress. The president wants to erase a portion of the 14th Amendment with the swipe of a pen.

This country’s last constitutional amendment, the 27th Amendment, also known as the Congressional Compensation Act of 1789, was actually the second of 12 Amendments proposed in 1789. Ten of those proposed Amendments were timely ratified and became the Bill of Rights.

According to the Constitution Center, there was no time period for ratification of a proposed Amendment by the states. After only six states ratified what would become the 27th Amendment, it remained dormant for almost 80 years.

In 1873, Ohio ratified the amendment as an expression of dissatisfaction with attempts by Congress at the time to increase their salaries. The amendment once again lay dormant, but in 1978 Wyoming ratified it, and by 1992, the requisite three-quarters of all states had ratified the Amendment — it was certified as the 27th Amendment.

At issue today is the 14th Amendment, ratified by Congress in 1868 as part of the civil rights amendments after the Civil War. The 14th Amendment provides in part, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

“What (President) Trump is seeking to do is enact a constitutional amendment through executive fiat through the phone and the pen, and you can’t do that,” Matthew Kolken, an immigration lawyer who is an elected member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s board of governors told Business Insider. “The process to enact a constitutional amendment is exceptionally difficult and designed that way.”

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

The only method ever used to amend the Constitution has been Congress proposing an amendment in the form of a joint resolution. Once passed by Congress, a proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by 38 of the 50 states.

The president has no constitutional role in the amendment process. In fact, the Congressional resolution does not go to the White House for signature or approval. The lack of any role for the president in amending the Constitution makes Trump’s proposed executive order even more troubling.

The 14th Amendment cannot be changed by executive order, or even by an act of Congress. It requires a constitutional amendment.

In 1995, Walter Dellinger, then the head of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, testified before Congress on the department’s position that any action to limit birthright citizenship would be unconstitutional. He said at the time that birthright citizenship is “fundamental to our liberty as we understand it.” According to Lawfareblog.com, Dellinger noted this week that this position “has never been publicly called into question.”

Unfortunately, the president has no regard for the law or the Constitution. Whether his threat to sign away birthright citizenship is just that — election bluster to motivate his far right base — or he truly intends to take action, he is being, and will continue to be, challenged.

Trump’s cockamamie ideas with regard to immigration have been thwarted. His family separation policy was met with intense opposition from both sides of the aisle and his executive order seeking to restrict immigration and travel to the U.S. was upheld on the third try after federal courts blocked the first two versions.

Even leaders in his own party have rejected the president’s idea out of hand. GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan opposes Trump’s plan to issue an executive order. “As a conservative, I’m a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process.”

— Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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Tennessee executes killer by electric chair

The 20th Execution of 2018

Tennessee Death row inmate Edmund Zagorski died at 7:26 p.m. CDT Thursday after prison officials electrocuted him with the electric chair, reported the Tennessean.  

He is the 134th person put to death by Tennessee since 1916 and the second person this year after Billy Ray Irick’s execution by lethal injection on Aug. 9. He is the first person to die by electric chair since Daryl Horton's execution in 2007.

Zagorski, 63, was convicted in the April 1983 murders of John Dale Dotson, of Hickman County, and Jimmy Porter, of Dickson. Prosecutors argued Zagorski lured them into the woods in Robertson County with the promise to sell them marijuana, and then he shot them, slit their throats and stole their money.

Two minutes before it was set to begin at 7 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court denied Zagorski's appeal on the grounds of the unconstitutionality of choosing between the electric chair and lethal injection. 

As dark clouds loomed over Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville and the sunset changed the sky from bright pink to black, a police-escorted van arrived.

Eight people believed to be family members of the victims entered the prison to witness the execution.

They waited in front of a covered large window that looked into the execution chamber where on the other side of the glass Zagorski sat pinned in the electric chair, held down by buckles and straps with electrodes fastened to his feet.

The blinds opened for the rest of the witnesses to see Zagorski dressed in his cotton clothes, smiling and grimacing to the group.

Zagorski pronounced his last words: "Let’s rock."

He sat smiling in the wired chair as prison staff placed a wet sponge, which had been soaked in salt, and a metal helmet on his freshly shaven head.

Zagorski raised his eyebrows, appearing to be communicating with his attorney Kelley Henry. She sat while nodding and tapping her heart, looking at Zagorski.

“I told him, when I put my hand over my heart, that was me holding him in my heart,” Henry told The Tennessean. She said Zagorski smiled, to encourage her to smile back. 

Then his face was covered with a black shroud.

The warden gave the signal to proceed. Zagorski lifted his right hand several times in what looked like attempts to wave, before he clenched his hands into a fist as the first current ran 1,750 volts of electricity through his body for 20 seconds.

There was a short pause before the second jolt was administered for 15 seconds.

The doctor overseeing the death appeared in view to check on Zagorski’s vitals.

Zagorski was dead. The blinds into the chamber closed.

Ten minutes later, the victims' families exited the building and drove away in the van without speaking publicly.

"The death of Edmund Zagorski was carried out by means of electrocution on Nov. 1, 2018," Neysa Taylor, director of communications for the Tennessee Department of Correction, said in a press conference.

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Tennessee to use electric chair tonight on condemned killer

Weeks after choosing the electric chair over lethal injection, a Tennessee death row inmate would be the second person in the state to be executed that way in nearly six decades, reported CNN.

Edmund Zagorski, 63, was sentenced to death for the 1984 murders of two men. His execution is scheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m.

He requested electrocution on the eve of his original execution date in early October because the state uses a controversial drug in lethal injections.Zagorski's attorneys argued the lethal injection would make him spend the last 10 to 18 minutes of his life in "utter terror and agony" while the electric chair would only cause him "excruciating pain for (likely) 15-30 seconds," court documents show.

Despite the decision, Zagorski's attorneys said he was forced into a "terrible choice," arguing that electrocution though "relatively fast" is also "dreadful and grim."The legal battle over his execution continues.

Zagorski's attorney, Paul Bottei, said he is still asking the US Supreme Court on Wednesday to delay the execution.The nation's high court declined to hear Zagorski's case in early October.

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Mangino a guest on Law and Crime Network's Daily Debrief

Watch my appearance on the Law and Crime Network's Daily Debrief with Aaron Keller.
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Feds won't let local DA arraign Pittsburgh synagogue shooter on murder charges

Federal officials have denied a request from the Allegheny County District Attorney for a temporary release of suspected synagogue shooter Robert Bowers so he could be arraigned on local homicide and hate-crime charges, reported the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

The District Attorney’s Office filed three dozen charges late Saturday night, including 11 counts of homicide. Bowers was arraigned on 29 federal charges Monday morning.

Bowers is accused of shooting 11 people to death and wounding six others at Temple of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill Saturday morning.

District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said in a statement this is “clearly a capital case.

“Ideally, as with previous prosecutions, the residents of our county would be the ones to sit in judgment of (Bowers) and should be given the opportunity to determine guilt and subsequent punishment,” he said.

Zappala said the investigation has been taken over by the FBI and the Department of Justice, and the case will need to move forward at the federal level first.

The state’s charges against Bowers will be put on hold in the meantime, Zappala said, noting his office will make sure Bowers’ right to a speedy trial is not violated.

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Condemned South Dakota man's last words: 'Sorry for the delay, I got stuck in traffic'

The 19th Execution of 2018

South Dakota murderer Rodney Scott Berget used his last words before his execution by lethal injection to make a joke about traffic, reported Newsweek.

Berget, 56, was sentenced to death for killing 63-year-old corrections officer Ronald Johnson in 2011. Berget beat Johnson to death with a pipe during a failed escape attempt the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls with another inmate.

Berget’s multiple appeals against the death penalty failed and his sentence was carried out at the South Dakota State Penitentiary on Monday evening just hours after a final rejection by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Sorry for the delay, I got caught in traffic,” Berget joked with state officials as he prepared for the lethal injection, Fox News reported. He also thanked people for their support, mentioning two by name, and made a peace sign with his hand.

KSFY reported that Berget’s last meal was buttermilk pancakes, waffles, maple syrup, butter, breakfast sausage, scrambled eggs, French fries, Pepsi, and cherry nibs licorice.

 “The execution of inmate Rodney Berget was carried out this evening in accordance to state law,” said a statement from South Dakota’s Secretary of Corrections Denny Kaemingk.

“South Dakota Codified Law assigns the responsibility for carrying out the warrant of death sentence and offenders that are sentenced to death to the Department of Corrections. We take that responsibility very seriously.

“Director of Prison Operations and Chief Warden Darin Young and his staff spent extensive time preparing to ensure that the warrant of death sentence and execution was carried out in a professional, humane and dignified manner and in accordance to state law.”

Before the murder of Johnson, Berget was already serving life without parole after a conviction for attempted murder and kidnapping in 2003.

In 2012, Eric Robert, the other inmate convicted of murdering Johnson, was executed. A third inmate involved in the escape attempt, Michael Nordman, was sentenced to life in prison for handing the other two a plastic wrap and the pipe used to kill the officer.

In 2000, Berget’s older brother Roger Berget was executed in Oklahoma after spending 13 years on death row for murdering a man, The Argus Leader reported.

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