Adams v. Bradshaw, No. 07-3688 (6th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseA jury convicted Adams of burglary, kidnapping, two counts of rape, and three counts of aggravated murder. The court followed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Adams to death. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Ohio vacated Adams’s kidnapping conviction, but affirmed the remaining convictions and the death sentence. In 2003, Adams filed an unsuccessful state petition for post-conviction relief. In 2006, Adams filed a federal habeas petition, challenging the use of a stun belt during trial and to Ohio’s lethal injection protocol. In 2013, the district court denied Adams’s motions for additional discovery and to take judicial notice of another challenge to Ohio’s lethal injection protocol. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of relief after holding the case in abeyance pending the Supreme Court’s 2015 holding in Glossip v. Gross. The court rejected arguments that requiring Adams to wear a stun belt throughout trial denied him a fundamentally fair trial and that Ohio’s lethal injection protocol violated the Eighth Amendment. The court noted that the stun belt inflicted no harm, was unknown to the jury, and was necessary because Adams had threatened bodily harm and posed a risk for escape,
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on June 13, 2016.
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