Too Fat To Die?

CNN tells us Jeffrey Lundgren has joined a lawsuit challenging Ohio's use of lethal injection to carry out the death penalty. Lundgren's plea is that he will experience pain and suffering because he is diabetic and overweight.

He was convicted of killing the Avery family of five (two adults and three children) in 1989. He shot them while they stood in a pit inside his barn.

Lundgren formed a cult after he was dismissed in 1987 as a lay minister of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ. He explained at his trial that he considered himself a prophet and God had told him through interpretation of scripture to kill the Averys.

The jury was unimpressed and returned their recommendation that Jeffrey Don Lundgren be put to death five times over.

That was a good decision and another good one is needed now. Why this lunatic was allowed to become obese in prison is a problem by itself. However to deny justice because of it is unacceptable. Pain and suffering should not in and of itself necessarily be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

The lawsuit Lundgren joined was brought by death row inmate Richard Wade Cooey, convicted of the kidnapping, rape, robbery and murder of two University of Akron students in 1986. He beat them to death with a billy club. How's that for cruel and unusual?