More on James Filiaggi execution:

• Matt Suman has this article in the Lorain Morning Journal, entitled "Rev. says killer was remorseful."

Excerpt:
The Rev. Neil Kookoothe, James Filiaggi's spiritual adviser, said yesterday it was more trying for him to speak with his friend Monday, knowing he was going to die, than to watch the lethal injection Tuesday morning.

Filiaggi, 41, was executed for shooting to death his ex-wife, Lisa Huff Filiaggi on Jan. 24, 1994. Kookoothe along with Filiaggi's friends, Zoltan Krompecher, Danny Rocco and Cindy Hayes, witnessed the execution on his behalf.

''It was more difficult to say goodbye when he was still alive,'' Kookoothe said. ''It was surreal.''

...Ellen Jane Harris, Lisa Huff Filiaggi's mother, said Tuesday that Filiaggi has never shown remorse for killing her daughter. But Kookoothe said he wants people to know that Filiaggi was and has been sorry for killing his ex-wife.

Filiaggi thought every day about what he did, Kookoothe said. He did not apologize or mention his ex-wife in his final statement.

''To say he was never remorseful, I know personally that's not the case,'' Kookoothe said. ''He was very remorseful. He always admitted he made a mistake. Everybody has tried to paint him as a monster. I knew him as a good man.''

Harris said Tuesday that the bad things Filiaggi had done in his life overshadowed the good. Lisa Filiaggi divorced him because she did not want her daughters to grow up in an unhealthy environment, she said.

Kookoothe, who was ordained in 1995, met the FIliaggi's in 1993 during his internship at St. Jude Church, 590 Poplar St., Elyria. He got involved speaking out against the death penalty in 1996 and has protested all but four or five executions since 1999, he said.

''Somebody asked me to write to a death row inmate,'' Kookoothe said. ''That's how it all started.''

Tuesday was the first time he witnessed an execution and it solidified his position on the issue, he said.

Catholic teachings are strongly against capital punishment, he said, adding that the death penalty is evil. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and others who made decisions allowing Filiaggi's execution to go forward will have to answer to God, Kookoothe said.

''It solves nothing,'' he said. ''Nobody walked out of there a winner (Tuesday).''

• Brad Dickens has this article in the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, entitled "Client's death not a surprise," providing a view of James Filiaggi's execution from his attorneys' perspectives.

Excerpt:
Toledo attorney Spiros Cocoves said Tuesday was the worst day of his life.
Last-minute legal efforts failed to save his client, James Filiaggi, and the 41-year-old Elyria man was executed Tuesday morning at the Southern Ohio Correction Facility in Lucasville.

“We weren’t surprised,” Cocoves said about the rejection of their efforts, “but we were hopeful.”

Cocoves and American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Jeff Gamso applied all the legal muscle they could after Filiaggi had a late change of heart and told them to try and save him. They pursued requests for mercy, or at least a stay of execution, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It wasn’t enough, and Gamso said even though he wasn’t a witness, he watched as those who did see Filiaggi die crossed the grounds of the prison to the Death House. He said when he watched the witnesses leave, he knew Filiaggi was dead. He then saw his body, covered by a white sheet, loaded into a hearse.

“We knew because we could see, not the killing, not the murder, but we could see the steps surrounding it,” he said.

For both attorneys, it was the first time a client they were still representing was executed.

...Gamso said the lethal injection drugs used in Ohio amount to torture because even though the condemned inmate is given a sedative, it might not be enough to keep him unconscious as other drugs stop his heart and breathing.

Essentially, Gamso said, even though Filiaggi appeared to have drifted off to sleep, he could have been in agony but was paralyzed and unable to cry out. A study on lethal injection released the day before Filiaggi was executed made similar claims.

“What we have learned is there’s no nice way to kill people and, whatever the technology, you can screw it up,” Gamso said.

That concern over the method is what prompted Filiaggi to try to join a federal lawsuit challenging lethal injection as cruel and unusual just days before his execution, Cocoves said.

“Jim’s primary motivation was to help other guys on death row,” Cocoves said.
Until then he had refused to fight to stay alive, at least until James Burge, his former attorney and now a Lorain County Common Pleas judge, convinced him to make the attempt.

“I tried to talk him into it, Spiros tried to talk him into it, lots of people tried to talk him into it,” Gamso said. “Burge is the one who finally succeeded.”

Despite those efforts, Filiaggi was at peace with his death and truly regretted the murder, Gamso said. Filiaggi had planned to kill himself, not his ex-wife, when he went to her house, he said.

“He regretted what he did,” Gamso said. “He never wanted to do that to his children.”