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Thread: Romell Broom - Ohio

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    Romell Broom - Ohio




    Facts of the Crime:

    On September 21, 1984, Broom murdered 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in Cleveland. Tryna was walking home with two friends when Broom abducted her at knifepoint. Broom raped Tryna and stabbed her seven times. DNA testing, conducted during federal appeals in 2001, identified Broom as the source of semen found in Tryna's vagina and rectum.

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    June 7, 2007

    Mother's wait for justice nearing an end

    Bessye Middleton has waited 23 years to see justice for her daughter, Tryna.

    The 14-year-old girl was raped and murdered by Romell Broom. He grabbed her while she walked home with friends from a Shaw High School football game in September of 1984.

    "Today, when she said we have a date, I just figured time is running out for Romell," Bessye says of a call her received Wednesday.

    The state has set the execution date for October 18th. Broom has sat on death row since 1985, the second longest stretch waiting for execution for an Ohio inmate.

    "I'll probably feel, 'He's finally gone, he finally got what he deserved,'" Bessye says of receiving the date. "He's fighting to stay alive but look what he did to Tryna. At least he's 50-something. She was only 14."

    Broom is now 51-years-old. Tryna would be 37. Her mother says she thinks every day of her happy, fun-loving little girl. Now, she waits for October 18th.

    "I will be thinking of her and I will say that justice has finally come for him."

    (Source: The Associated Press)

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    September 10, 2007

    Federal judge grants execution delay for inmate who joined lawsuit

    COLUMBUS (AP) - A federal judge has delayed the October execution of a death row inmate who joined a lawsuit challenging lethal injection as unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

    Judge Gregory Frost of U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio, ordered the Oct. 18 execution of Romell Broom halted while the lawsuit proceeds.

    Broom, who raped and stabbed to death a 14-year-old girl, is one of 15 Ohio inmates claiming the procedure may cause prisoners to suffer during an execution.

    Another death row inmate asked Frost on Friday for permission to join the lawsuit. Michael Turner, 48, killed his estranged wife, Jennifer Lyles Turner, and her boyfriend, Ronald Seggerman, at her apartment in suburban Columbus on June 12, 2001.

    Broom, 51, abducted Tryna Middleton in Cleveland at knifepoint on Sept. 21, 1984, while the girl was walking with friends. He then raped her and stabbed her seven times, according to the attorney general's office.

    The state opposes the lawsuit, arguing that the inmates missed a deadline for filing such a complaint.

    Earlier this year, an appeals court ordered the lawsuit dismissed over the missed deadline but delayed its order to allow an appeal of that issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Ohio is waiting for the high court's decision and its impact on the entire lawsuit and so won't appeal the decision to delay Broom's execution.

    "We're not going to do this piecemeal," said Leo Jennings, a spokesman for Attorney General Marc Dann. "It's not the best use of our resources."

    In Delaware, a federal judge in February allowed all inmates on death row to join that state's similar injection lawsuit, while similar suits in California and Missouri have put all executions on hold. A federal lawsuit is also pending in Maryland where executions are on hold after a state appeals court said the state didn't properly adopt new injection procedures.

    Frost said there is increasing evidence of "an unacceptable and unnecessary risk that Broom will be irreparably harmed" without the delay, according to his Sept. 5 order to halt the execution.

    At the same time, as he has said before, Frost said problems with Ohio's injection process seem easy to fix.

    In June, Frost also delayed death row inmate Clarence Carter's July 10 execution.

    In Ohio and elsewhere, states use three chemicals: sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The first drug is a painkiller, which death penalty opponents have argued can wear off too soon. The second drug paralyzes the inmate, and the third causes a fatal heart attack.

    Death row inmate Richard Cooey, sentenced to die for raping and killing two female University of Akron students in 1986, brought Ohio's original complaint in 2004. He alleged the current procedure would amount to him being tortured to death.

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    September 11, 2007

    Death row killer Romell Broom's lawyers focus on rape victim's character

    The Ohio Parole Board will tell Gov. Ted Strickland by Friday whether it believes Cleveland death row inmate Romell Broom should live.

    During a clemency hearing last Friday, Broom's attorneys set out to sully the reputation of the 14-year-old girl he was convicted of raping and murdering to make their claim that Broom doesn't deserve to die.

    It was a risky move that for different reasons upset the families of Broom and Trina Middleton, the victim. It also drew pointed questions from Parole Board members.

    Broom, 51, is one of about a dozen condemned prisoners in a lawsuit challenging Ohio's lethal-injection procedures.

    And though his Oct. 18 execution has been delayed during the suit, the case has unraveled for the inmates and now hinges on an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not decided whether to hear the case. That makes clemency a crucial backup plan, said Broom's attorney Tim Sweeney.

    Middleton was killed Sept. 21, 1984, after she was abducted at knifepoint about 11:30 p.m. in East Cleveland, where she lived, while two 13-year-old girls she was walking with ran for help.

    Her body was found 3 hours later in a nearby parking lot. She had been stabbed 7 times and sexually assaulted.

    Broom was convicted a year later based largely on the eyewitness accounts of the two other girls. The crime happened 5 months after he had been released from a nine-year prison lock-up for raping a 12-year-old girl in 1975.

    Broom maintains he did not kill Middleton. During Friday's hearing, his legal team didn't go so far as to say he was innocent of murder, but they seemed to question whether there really had been an abduction and rape -- criminal circumstances that triggered the death sentence for the slaying.

    They introduced dozens of police reports of interviews with other teenagers who knew Middleton that were not disclosed by police or prosecutors during Broom's trial.

    The reports portrayed Middleton and her two friends that night as being drunk on beer and high on marijuana. Middleton was also said to be sexually active and along with her girlfriends was known to accept rides from strangers.

    "Romell Brown did not receive a fair trial," Sweeney, of Cleveland, told the board. "If all the evidence was known, he may have still been convicted, but he would have escaped the death sentence."

    Sweeney was joined by attorneys Adele Shank and Alan Rossman. Rossman was one of Broom's original attorneys.

    Prosecutors weren't buying it and told the Parole Board that Broom is a cold-blooded killer who has never expressed remorse.

    "Whatever they were doing, experimenting with their sexuality, they were still innocent of this crime. They were still three little girls," argued Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Jon Oebker, who was assisted by an assistant Ohio attorney general.

    Oebker blamed the suppression of those reports on East Cleveland police. But he said the documents probably would not have been admissible anyway since many of the claims were based on hearsay and didn't factor in Broom's defense that he wasn't with the girls.

    Broom's brother, Ray Broom, addressed the board and took issue with prosecutors for withholding the evidence. He said it further solidified his belief that his brother is innocent.

    Middleton's mother, Bessye, said that Friday was the first she heard of the police reports disparaging her daughter and called the claims "lies." She said Broom's sentence is appropriate.

    Several members of the seven-person Parole Board questioned Sweeney for bringing up the girl's moral character. But others wondered why the information wasn't available to the defense in 1985 and whether it would have mattered for Broom.

    (Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer)

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    April 22, 2009

    New execution date has been set:

    OHIO----new execution date

    1987-1674. State v. Broom.

    Cuyahoga App. No. 51237. On renewed motion to set execution date. Motion granted.

    Pfeifer, J., dissents.

    It is ordered that appellant's sentence be carried into execution by the Warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility or, in his absence, by the Deputy Warden on Tuesday, September 15, 2009, in accordance with the statutes so provided.

    It is further ordered that a certified copy of this entry and a warrant under the seal of this court be duly certified to the Warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility and that said Warden shall make due return thereof to the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County.

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    April 22, 2009

    COLUMBUS: The Ohio Supreme Court has set a September execution date for a man who raped and stabbed a 14-year-old girl more than two decades ago.

    The court ruled 6-1 today that Romell Broom of Cleveland should be put to death Sept. 15 for the death of Tryna Middleton.

    Broom was convicted of abducting the girl at knifepoint on Sept. 21, 1984, raping her and stabbing her seven times.

    Other Ohio inmates are scheduled to die in June, July and August.

    The court's announcement comes one day after a federal judge ruled that Ohio's lethal injection process is flawed but constitutional.

    http://www.ohio.com/news/ohiocentric/43432677.html

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    July 31, 2009

    Romell Broom, scheduled for execution in September for 1985 murder, may use public records as basis to seek new trial, appellate court decides

    A death row inmate scheduled for execution in September will get a chance to convince a judge that information discovered after his conviction could have exonerated him.

    Romell Broom, 53, was sentenced to death in 1985 for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton. Tryna, a 9th-grader at Shaw High School in East Cleveland, had been walking home with friends from a Friday night football game when she was abducted at knife point and forced into his car.

    The 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that 165 pages of records from the East Cleveland Police Department can be presented to the original trial court as possible grounds for a new trial.

    However, it will be up to Broom's legal team to argue in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court that the information could have changed the outcome of his case.

    The records, which Broom collected through a public records request in 1994, reveal that Tryna and her two friends had been under the influence of drugs on the night of the murder. They also suggest that the three girls had a habit of taking car rides with strange men and that the person to whom the victim's friends reported the abduction did not initially believe the girls.

    Broom had asked state and federal courts 6 times to consider the exculpatory value of the public records. He first filed a petition for post-conviction relief in 1990 and requested the state court stay his case while he tried to collect the information.

    He finally obtained the records in 1994. But several months later the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a defendant who is seeking a retrial cannot use information obtained through public records requests because he or she would then have more information than prosecutors would be required to share at trial.

    State and federal appellate courts repeatedly denied Broom's petitions on these grounds and because Broom failed to file in a timely fashion.

    Thursday, the appellate court ruled that Broom can use the public records because the law allowed their use at the time he received them.

    A spokesman for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said the prosecutor's office intends to appeal the case to the Ohio Supreme Court.

    Broom's attorney, S. Adele Shank, could not be reached for comment.

    Broom is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 15. His execution -- originally set for October 2007 -- was delayed because he was 1 of 20 inmates who challenged the constitutionality of the state's lethal-injection procedures. In April, a federal judge ruled that the process is flawed but constitutional.

    After Broom's clemency hearing in 2007, the parole board said in its 16-page report, that it was "persuaded by the argument of state's counsel that the suppressed' evidence is too speculative to support any reasonable probability that the jury's verdict would have been different."

    Tryna's body was found about two hours after her abduction and 3 miles away in Forest Hill Park. She had been stabbed seven times and sexually assaulted.

    Prosecutors say semen in her body came from Broom, though his attorneys say DNA tests were inconclusive.

    Tryna's friends picked Broom from a police lineup and later identified the car he used in the abduction.

    Broom said it was a case of mistaken identity and has maintained his innocence.

    (Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer)

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    August 29, 2009

    Cleveland killer Romell Broom's plea to avoid execution was rejected for the second time yesterday by the Ohio Parole Board.

    The panel voted 8-0 against clemency for Broom, 53, who is scheduled to be executed Sept. 15 for abducting and murdering Tryna Middleton on Sept. 21, 1984, in Cleveland.

    Broom abducted the 14-year-old girl at knifepoint, then raped and fatally stabbed her, court records show. Post-conviction DNA testing showed only a 1 in 2.3 million chance that the rapist-murderer was someone other than Broom.

    The board rejected arguments by Broom's attorneys that recently discovered information might have persuaded a jury not to give him the death penalty. The decision said the Ohio Supreme Court, not the parole board, should decide whether further appeals are warranted.

    In an interview with the parole board, Broom said the Innocence Project is working on his case. However, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office said the group that investigates inmates' claims of innocence looked at the case but decided not to participate in Broom's defense.

    Gov. Ted Strickland will make the final clemency decision. He can accept or reject the board's recommendation.

    The board previously voted in September 2007 against clemency for Broom, but his execution was postponed when he joined a lawsuit challenging Ohio's lethal-injection procedure. That case was dismissed, prompting the Ohio Supreme Court to set a new death date.

    Ohio has conducted 32 executions in the past 10 years, including three this year.

    http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...s&cat=&sid=101

    The Parole Board's decision is here:

    http://www.drc.ohio.gov/Public/Broom...ncy%20Supp.pdf

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    September 5, 2009

    State high court takes death appeal

    The Ohio Supreme Court says it will determine whether a death row inmate should get a hearing to consider whether investigators shielded records that may have changed the outcome of the case.

    Fifty-three-year-old Romell Broom is scheduled to die by lethal injection Sept. 15 for the rape and stabbing death of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton in Cleveland in 1984.

    The court Thursday ordered attorneys to file arguments over the next week. Prosecutors in Cuyahoga County have asked the high court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that would allow the hearing.

    Among the evidence Broom says the state failed to disclose is that Middleton and two witnesses used illegal drugs and had a habit of lying.

    Prosecutors say a federal judge has already ruled that the evidence would not have made a difference at trial.

    http://www.journalgazette.net/articl...940/-1/local11

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    September 14, 2009

    Daughter's rape, killing in 1984 haunts parents

    EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's been 25 years, and the painful memories linger of the day that Bessye Middleton's 14-year-old daughter was raped and stabbed to death.

    Tryna Middleton was abducted at knifepoint on Sept. 21, 1984, while she was walking home from a Friday night football game with two friends.

    The man convicted of her murder, Romell Broom, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday.

    "It's been 25 years, and the pain has gotten a little bit better, but there is not a single day that I don't get up and think about her during some point in the day," said Bessye Middleton, 65.

    Tryna's father, David Middleton, a retired auto worker, won't drive down the street where his daughter was abducted, and for years, he became nauseated on returning to a home filled with memories. Bessye Middleton will drive down the street where her daughter was taken only when she heads to church on Sundays.

    On the day of the murder, Broom followed the girls in a slow-moving car. They sensed something wasn't right and turned up a different street to get home, Bessye Middleton said.

    But Broom, who was familiar with the neighborhood, apparently guessed their detour and was waiting for them. He raped Tryna Middleton and stabbed her seven times, according to the attorney general's office.

    Broom's preying on girls eventually caught up with him.

    Three months later, Broom forced an 11-year-old girl into his car, but the victim's mother thwarted his escape by running after the car, which was stuck on ice, and yelling to her daughter to jump out.

    "The daughter finally jumped out, just about the same time he got some traction on the vehicle, and he actually ran over her leg," said Gary Belluomini, an FBI agent who worked in a white-collar crime unit where Bessye Middleton was a clerk.

    Two eyewitnesses to the abduction attempt collaborated, one getting the numbers on the car's license plate and the other, the letters. That led to Broom's arrest.

    He was identified by the girl and her mother and by two eyewitnesses, and, after police recognized the similarities in the cases, by Tryna's girlfriends.

    The back-to-back identifications helped crack the case, according to retired Cleveland police detective Edward "Buddy" Kovacic.

    "You connect the dots, and all of a sudden the dots start looking like a square or a triangle. All of a sudden they connect, and that's what happened," he said.

    Broom, 53, has a criminal record dating to when he was 13, including robbery, car theft and the rape in 1975 of his niece's 12-year-old baby sitter. He served 8 1/2 years of a seven- to 25-year rape sentence and was paroled four months before Tryna was killed.

    Broom turned down interview requests as his execution date approached, according to the state prison system. The state Parole Board has recommended that Gov. Ted Strickland deny clemency.

    The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday rejected his request to present evidence he says could have changed the outcome of his trial.

    Broom has said he was targeted because of his earlier rape conviction and has complained that his attorneys didn't get all the information that police collected.

    Prosecutors say a federal judge already has ruled that the evidence would not have made a difference at trial.

    The defense at his 1985 trial said Broom, whose sister had been stabbed to death, dropped out of school in 10th grade and was shaped by a broken family in which he saw his mother beaten by his father. Broom often had to care for his siblings.

    Broom's mother pleaded with the trial court to spare his life.

    "He didn't kill your baby. He didn't kill that baby. I swear to God, he didn't kill your baby," his mother, Ella Mae Broom, said after she left the witness stand.

    Bessye Middleton thinks the time has come.

    "It's not that you want somebody's life to be taken from them, but he's trying to beat the system," she said in an even tone. "We had to suffer. He's had 25 years longer than her."

    http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live...E.html?sid=101

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