High court will consider evidence

COLUMBUS – The Ohio Supreme Court must decide on Tuesday whether lower courts overlooked evidence that a man is incompetent to face execution for a 1983 murder.

The court scheduled a hearing on the issue on yesterday, five days before Jay D. Scott, 48, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection for killing Vinnie Prince during a robbery of her Cleveland delicatessen.

Scott, who has run out of appeals on the merits of his conviction and sentence, would be the first Ohio inmate in 38 years to be put to death against his will.

Scott's court-appointed attorneys, Timothy Scott and John Pyle, were expected to focus on these points:

n That Scott, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, is too ill to be executed and that it would be cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution because of his mental illness.

n That the state has the burden of proving Scott is competent, rather than the defense having to prove that he is incompetent.

Joe Case, spokesman for Attorney General Betty Montgomery, said state Solicitor David Gormley would argue the state's case, with some time likely to be given to Christopher Frey, an assistant prosecutor in Cuyahoga County, where Scott was convicted and sentenced in 1984.

"We will emphasize the fact that two courts have already ruled that Mr. Scott is competent under standards set by the Ohio Revised Code," Case said.

Ohio law says an inmate is competent to be executed if he knows of the proceedings against him, why he is being executed and that he will die as a result of the sentence.

A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge ruled April 16 that Scott is competent to face execution. The next day, the Ohio Supreme Court postponed Scott's execution – 65 minutes before it was to take place – so the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals could have time to consider the case.

The appeals court upheld the lower court on April 20, and the Supreme Court set the new execution date on April 25.