Post by CCADP on Aug 12, 2005 12:26:33 GMT -5
Boy's mother reacts: 'Where's my justice?'
Killer spared death because of retardation
By Jane Prendergast
Enquirer staff writer
Zoom The Enquirer/Gary Landers
Barbara Raines, mother of Aaron Raines.
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Aaron Raines
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Darryl Gumm
SAYLER PARK - The mother of 10-year-old Aaron Raines, who was raped and beaten to death in Lower Price Hill 13 years ago, questioned Thursday why one of the boy's killers had his death sentence overturned because of mental retardation.
Darryl Gumm is the first death-row inmate in Ohio to have his execution blocked for that reason.
Barbara Raines sat through myriad court hearings during the prosecution of her youngest child's killer. She understood Gumm would have many opportunities to appeal.
"I'm not the first person who had a child that was killed," Raines said Thursday afternoon as she sat in her kitchen in Sayler Park, drinking a Pepsi and blotting her eyes with a paper towel. "And I won't be the last. But where's my justice in this? He's already through with his appeals.
"He should be killed."
A judge noted Gumm was in special-education classes, functioned between a second- and third-grade level when he was in eighth grade and was always more of a follower than a leader.
Even though Gumm's IQ is above 70, the generally accepted guideline for retardation, the convicted killer's intellectual functioning is sub-average enough that Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Dennis Helmick ruled he must be moved off death row, where he has been for the 1992 killing of Aaron Raines.
Under a 2002 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, defendants like Gumm can have their death sentences overturned and be resentenced if a judge determines they are mentally retarded.
In Gumm's case, Helmick issued his ruling Tuesday, surprising Raines and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters.
Gumm, now 39, is the first in Ohio to be successful in his mental retardation claim, said Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
Twenty-three others on death row - of 198 inmates there - claim they're retarded, too, according to statistics as of Dec. 31.
Deters said Thursday he'll likely appeal, but he isn't sure he'll be successful. He remembered the beating as particularly brutal - Aaron was hit 19 times with a metal pipe.
Deters was prosecutor when Gumm was convicted.
The boy was still recovering from a head injury from being hit by a van while riding his skateboard, his mother said. If he were thinking right, she said, he never would have gone into the abandoned building near Eighth Street and State Avenue where he was found dead.
When Gumm is resentenced, the laws in effect in 1992 will apply.
That means, Deters said, that life without parole will not be an option because it didn't exist at the time. Deters said that, depending on the sentence is imposed, Gumm could have the possibility of parole.
"I'm not saying that Darryl Gumm isn't stupid," Deters said. "I just don't think he's retarded."
Raines doesn't either.
"He knew enough to kill Aaron and run," she said.
She wants to make sure judges at the courthouse downtown and at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington know how it feels to be the mother of a murdered little boy whose killer gets to live because someone decided he's retarded.
She's still deciding how to get her message across.
"I know this sounds terrible to say, and people probably won't think it's right," she said. "But if he gets out, I'll be there at the gate. He won't walk five steps."
E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com
Killer spared death because of retardation
By Jane Prendergast
Enquirer staff writer
Zoom The Enquirer/Gary Landers
Barbara Raines, mother of Aaron Raines.
ADVERTISEMENT
Zoom
Aaron Raines
Zoom
Darryl Gumm
SAYLER PARK - The mother of 10-year-old Aaron Raines, who was raped and beaten to death in Lower Price Hill 13 years ago, questioned Thursday why one of the boy's killers had his death sentence overturned because of mental retardation.
Darryl Gumm is the first death-row inmate in Ohio to have his execution blocked for that reason.
Barbara Raines sat through myriad court hearings during the prosecution of her youngest child's killer. She understood Gumm would have many opportunities to appeal.
"I'm not the first person who had a child that was killed," Raines said Thursday afternoon as she sat in her kitchen in Sayler Park, drinking a Pepsi and blotting her eyes with a paper towel. "And I won't be the last. But where's my justice in this? He's already through with his appeals.
"He should be killed."
A judge noted Gumm was in special-education classes, functioned between a second- and third-grade level when he was in eighth grade and was always more of a follower than a leader.
Even though Gumm's IQ is above 70, the generally accepted guideline for retardation, the convicted killer's intellectual functioning is sub-average enough that Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Dennis Helmick ruled he must be moved off death row, where he has been for the 1992 killing of Aaron Raines.
Under a 2002 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, defendants like Gumm can have their death sentences overturned and be resentenced if a judge determines they are mentally retarded.
In Gumm's case, Helmick issued his ruling Tuesday, surprising Raines and Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters.
Gumm, now 39, is the first in Ohio to be successful in his mental retardation claim, said Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
Twenty-three others on death row - of 198 inmates there - claim they're retarded, too, according to statistics as of Dec. 31.
Deters said Thursday he'll likely appeal, but he isn't sure he'll be successful. He remembered the beating as particularly brutal - Aaron was hit 19 times with a metal pipe.
Deters was prosecutor when Gumm was convicted.
The boy was still recovering from a head injury from being hit by a van while riding his skateboard, his mother said. If he were thinking right, she said, he never would have gone into the abandoned building near Eighth Street and State Avenue where he was found dead.
When Gumm is resentenced, the laws in effect in 1992 will apply.
That means, Deters said, that life without parole will not be an option because it didn't exist at the time. Deters said that, depending on the sentence is imposed, Gumm could have the possibility of parole.
"I'm not saying that Darryl Gumm isn't stupid," Deters said. "I just don't think he's retarded."
Raines doesn't either.
"He knew enough to kill Aaron and run," she said.
She wants to make sure judges at the courthouse downtown and at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington know how it feels to be the mother of a murdered little boy whose killer gets to live because someone decided he's retarded.
She's still deciding how to get her message across.
"I know this sounds terrible to say, and people probably won't think it's right," she said. "But if he gets out, I'll be there at the gate. He won't walk five steps."
E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com