Death row inmate: Prison food made me fat

updated 3:44 p.m. ET Oct. 8, 2008

CINCINNATI - An Ohio death row inmate said prison food is partly responsible for making him too fat to be executed humanely.

Richard Cooey is scheduled to die by lethal injection Oct. 14 for killing two University of Akron students in 1986.

His attorneys said in a brief filed Tuesday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that the state is partly responsible for Cooey's physical problems that might make his death unnecessarily painful.

The appeal said his obesity could make it difficult for the execution team to find a viable vein for lethal injection. Lawyers also repeated another claim that headache medication prescribed by state doctors could reduce the effectiveness of an anesthetic administered during execution.

State attorneys argue that all of Cooey's claims are invalid because he missed an earlier deadline for filing appeals.

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