The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction says a twice convicted murderer whose November lethal injection was halted when a vein couldn't be found died of natural causes on Saturday.
A department spokesperson says 69-year-old Alva Campbell Junior was found unresponsive in his Chillicothe Correctional Institution cell Saturday and was pronounced dead at a hospital. A federal appeals court last month denied a challenge by Campbell's attorneys that Ohio's three-drug lethal execution protocol poses an unacceptable risk of pain and suffering. Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said Saturday on Twitter Campbell "successfully ran out the clock after 20 years of frivolous post-conviction litigation." Campbell was sentenced to die in 1998 for killing 18-year-old Charles Dials during a carjacking outside of the Franklin County Courthouse.
