The Associated Press pro­vid­ed a descrip­tion of the strug­gle to exe­cute Ohio death row inmate Lewis Williams on January 14, 2004:

A con­vict­ed killer, strug­gling with guards and plead­ing for his life until the last moment, was exe­cut­ed Wednesday morn­ing for the 1983 fatal rob­bery of a Cleveland woman.

Lewis Williams con­tin­ued to pro­fess his inno­cence even as he was car­ried into the death cham­ber by four guards. 

“I’m not guilty. I’m not guilty. God, please help me,” Williams said as he was strapped to the execution table. 

It was the first time in nine exe­cu­tions since the state resumed the prac­tice in 1999 that an inmate has strug­gled with guards. 

Williams, con­tin­ued to cry out as his moth­er, Bonnie Williams, 66, sobbed in a room sep­a­rat­ed by win­dows from the death chamber. 

He kept plead­ing even in his final offi­cial state­ment, giv­en at 10:07 a.m. ​“God, please help me. God, please hear my cry,” Williams said. 

Williams con­tin­ued to cry out even after war­den James Haviland pulled the micro­phone away. Williams con­tin­ued yelling until 10:08 a.m. when he abrupt­ly stopped speak­ing. His chest rose and fell a couple times. 

Haviland ordered the cur­tains drawn at 10:14 a.m. for the Scioto County coro­ner to deter­mine that Williams was dead. 

For the first time, wit­ness­es saw mem­bers of the exe­cu­tion team insert the nee­dles that will deliv­er the lethal drugs into an inmate’s arms. 

The deci­sion by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to allow the process to be viewed set­tles a law­suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in September, said pris­ons sys­tem direc­tor Reginald Wilkinson. 

Wilkinson said offi­cials would review what hap­pened with Williams. 

“I would say it was dis­turb­ing. I would say it was trau­mat­ic,” Wilkinson said. ​“It was prob­a­bly as trau­mat­ic as any­thing our staff has gone through.” 

It took sev­er­al mem­bers of the exe­cu­tion team to car­ry a strug­gling Williams into the prepa­ra­tion room, as seen on the mon­i­tors. At least nine guards had to restrain Williams at var­i­ous points as they pre­pared his arms and inserted needles. 

A cam­era broad­cast the inser­tion to two video mon­i­tors in the wit­ness rooms next to the death chamber. 

Williams, 45, repeat­ed­ly shook his head and tried to lift him­self off the prepa­ra­tion bed. He yelled sev­er­al times, then would rest his head and speak qui­et­ly, appear­ing to whis­per at points and chant at other points. 

One guard stand­ing at his head alter­nate­ly restrained him and pat­ted his right shoul­der to comfort him. 

“It was an awful thing to watch,” said Stephen Ferrell, an assis­tant state pub­lic defend­er. ​“The strug­gle caught us by sur­prise. He did­n’t seem to be like that this morning.” 

In 1999, a prob­lem insert­ing an injec­tion nee­dle into Wilford Berry’s right arm delayed Ohio’s first exe­cu­tion since 1963 for more than 20 minutes. 

Williams tried unsuc­cess­ful­ly to chal­lenge the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of how inmates are exe­cut­ed in Ohio. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday reject­ed his request to stay his execution. 

He was the first Ohio inmate whose men­tal retar­da­tion claim was reject­ed to be executed. 

Williams was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in June, but it was delayed after Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Janet Burnside allowed him to present his claim that he was mentally retarded. 

The U.S. Supreme Court two years ago ruled that exe­cut­ing the men­tal­ly retard­ed was unconstitutional. 

Burnside lat­er reject­ed Williams’ men­tal retar­da­tion claim after an expert hired by his attor­neys deter­mined he is not mentally retarded. 

Williams was con­vict­ed of shoot­ing Leoma Chmielewski, 76, dur­ing a rob­bery in her Cleveland home.

See Executions.
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