Priest: Filiaggi remorseful

[carolinem]

Reverend says killer was remorseful


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.''

Filiaggi will be cremated to honor his wish, said Kookoothe, pastor of the Church of St. Clarence in North Olmsted. Filiaggi's funeral service is planned for Saturday morning. His family is keeping the details of the funeral and services private, Kookoothe said.

Filiaggi's parents and other family members have been doing extremely well considering the circumstances, Kookoothe said, and it was less burdensome for them because he had accepted his fate.

''Jim went into that with a great deal of courage,'' he said. ''Jim
paid the debt that society required of him.''

After the lethal injection procedure Tuesday, Kookoothe said he prayed with Filiaggi's family and friends and read a passage from scripture.

''The support of family and friends was tremendous,'' Kookoothe said. ''Jim would have been proud of us.''

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 1st 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).''

(source: The Morning Journal)

[carolinem]

Log chronicles killer's last hours


James Filiaggi made small talk with the execution team and wrote his mother a final note after learning at 10:23 a.m. Tuesday exactly an hour before he'd be pronounced dead that the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his plea for mercy.

According to a minute-by-minute execution timeline kept by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, 8 minutes after learning that his execution would go forward, Filiaggi said aloud: "It is a shame that one bad thing overshadows all the good that one does."

He also said he was "ready" and asked questions about the process, including whether he would be able to see the friends he had chosen as witnesses from the execution chamber. He discussed deer hunting before taking 6 minutes to write the note to his mother, Mary Filiaggi, who was not one of the 3 witnesses Filiaggi was allowed in the Death House.

The log kept by a guard posted near his cell as part of execution
protocol painted a picture of Filiaggi as a cooperative inmate who
appeared interested in the process and was ready to die, even asking shortly before the scheduled 10 a.m. execution how much longer until the process would begin. That was delayed because the nation's highest court hadn't yet decided whether to grant him a reprieve.

Father Neil Kookoothe, Filiaggis spiritual adviser who witnessed the execution, said Filiaggi was prepared for what was to come.

"What surprised me, and I'm very proud of Jim for this, in these last few days was the peace and serenity he had found," he said.

Kookoothe said Filiaggi had sought and received forgiveness from God for the 1994 murder of his ex-wife, Lisa Huff Filiaggi, whom he chased from her Lorain home to a neighbors home and shot in the head.

"He knew that he did a monstrous thing, but he didn't want his life to be memorialized by that one act," he said. "There was never a night that the lights went off and his head hit the pillow that he didn't replay that horrible night."

Kookoothe said Filiaggi was a great friend to those he loved, which could explain why he had so many visitors after he arrived at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville at 9:31 a.m. Monday.

Filiaggi's 24 visitors, including college friends, his parents and
his siblings, was a record for a condemned inmate, said ODRC spokeswoman Andrea Dean.

Shortly after arriving, the execution process was explained to Filiaggi and he ordered a special meal and other favorites. He was given a mental health evaluation and talked with his attorneys by phone.

Warden Edwin Voorhies Jr. then explained how the execution process and his final visits with friends and family would be handled. He also told him that the Ohio Supreme Court had rejected his request for a stay.

The log shows that Filiaggi didn't sleep Monday night, but that he did catch a brief nap earlier in the day.

Kookoothe said it didn't surprise him that Filiaggi stayed up through Monday night. He had said he wanted to write letters, see his visitors, make phone calls and tie up loose ends.

"He said he's going to have plenty of time to sleep," he said.

Throughout Monday afternoon, Filiaggi spent time with Kookoothe, talked with his attorneys and received a visit from Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge, his former defense attorney, who had convinced him to make his 11th hours appeals for a stay.

Filiaggi received his meal at 4:07 p.m. and spent the next half-hour eating. He then changed into clean clothes and was taken to the visiting area. The visits lasted until 8:24 p.m. Monday and he was returned to his cell.

Throughout the night, Filiaggi wrote letters and made and received numerous phone calls from friends and family. He asked for coffee and ice water throughout the evening.

On Tuesday, the day of the execution, he took a 20-minute shower beginning at 5:30 a.m. and had breakfast before having his final visits with his loved ones.

Filiaggi was anointed with oil by Kookoothe, and he prayed with the priest and Burge.

At 10:56 a.m. Tuesday, the execution process began as media witnesses were led to the Death House. 27 minutes later, Filiaggi was dead.

[carolinem]

Attorney: Clients death not a surprise


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 werent 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. It was something that was bound to happen, Cocoves said.

"If you're representing people in a state with the death penalty,
you're going to have clients being executed," he said.

There was no question that Filiaggi broke into the Lorain home of his ex-wife, Lisa Huff Filiaggi, chased her to a neighbors house and shot her in the head, Cocoves said, but he still doesn't think his client should have been put to death.

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."

(source for both: Chronicle-Telegram)

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