Condemned Man’s Request To Donate Organs Denied Because There’s Not Enough Time For Him To Recover (Before They Kill Him)

death row

 

Rapist, child killer and now potential death row organ donor Ronald Philips, who was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter back in 1993, is set to be executed on July 2nd of this year. On Friday his request for his organs to be donated to two of his family members was denied because, get this, there isn’t enough time for him to recover from the surgery. You know, recover enough so they can kill him anyway. To me, this pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with the death penalty in America.

From what the Cleveland Plain Dealer says, the kidney surgery would have to be completed by tomorrow in order to give Philips enough time to recover before July 2nd. According to Stephen Gray, the prison system’s chief counsel, the state “fully intends” to carry out the execution as scheduled. Apparently Philips would like to donate his kidney to his mother, who suffers from kidney disease and his possibly heart to his sister, who has heart disease (obviously this would have to happen post-execution and I’m guessing the kidney can’t be due to the cocktail given via lethal injection though reports aren’t clear on this fact.).

Now, to be fair, this could very well be a ploy on Philip’s part to buy time. He didn’t make this request until November of 2013, after running out of appeals.. But of course, why would he make the request before that, if there was even a glimmer of hope for his own life? But Philips was warned about this deadline two months ago, and according to Gray:

“Only a little progress has been made by your client and his mother to move forward with this process.”

Philips initial request was also denied, but Ohio Governor John Kasich delayed the execution until July in order to give the state more time to determine whether or not this was even possible.

To be completely frank, I am personally against the death penalty all together. I think that the legal system is too flawed to have the power to end someone’s life, no matter what they’re accused of. I’m obviously not defending this piece of human filth. What he did was despicable and he should spend the rest of his life in jail.

But regardless of my feelings on the matter, Philips will be executed. What I don’t understand is how the state of Ohio could deny two innocent people the chance to possibly have healthy lives, all because of time constraints. What’s even more baffling is that the time constraints are caused by the state’s obligation to give him recovery time, even though as soon as he’s recovered, they are just going to execute him anyway.This kind of skewed logic is the epitome of why the state shouldn’t have this power. I’m also confused on how this would effect his possibly heart donation, since this would have to be done after death.There has to be another option, and for the sake of this guy’s family members (again, innocent people who had nothing to do with his crimes), I hope the state reconsiders.

(Photo: Shutterstock/Nagel Photography)

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