COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio prison warden says the state's execution table can easily hold a condemned inmate who has argued he's so big the table might collapse.
Warden Donald Morgan of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility said in a court filing late Monday that he tested the table with an equally heavy prison employee and also by placing 540 pounds of weights on the table for two hours.
Inmate Ronald Post is asking a federal judge to spare him because he would face a "torturous and lingering death" if executed in January.
Post's attorneys said last month he weighs 480 pounds, while the state says Post weighed 396 pounds last week.
The 53-year-old Post is scheduled to die Jan. 16 for the 1983 shooting death of Helen Vantz in Elyria.
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