The execution of Robert Van Hook occurred on July 18, 2018, at the

Southern Ohio Correctional Facility The Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (commonly referred to as Lucasville) is a maximum security prison located just outside Lucasville in Scioto County, Ohio. The prison was constructed in 1972. As of 2023, the warden is Cindy Davis. The p ...

in Lucasville, Ohio. Van Hook was executed via

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...

for the 1985 murder of 25-year-old David Self. His case achieved notoriety because of his failed gay panic defense. Ultimately, his conviction was upheld by the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

and Governor

John Kasich John Richard Kasich Jr. ( ; born May 13, 1952) is an American politician and author who was the 69th governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001, and a Republican candidate for the pre ...

of Ohio rejected his bids for

clemency A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

. The execution garnered new attention and significance in December 2020, when Governor

Mike DeWine Richard Michael DeWine ( ; born January 5, 1947) is an American politician and attorney serving as the 70th List of governors of Ohio, governor of Ohio since 2019. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served a ...

announced that the state of Ohio would no longer execute

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting executio ...

inmates via lethal injection. Since the execution of Van Hook, there has been an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment in the state, as a result of the unavailability of the drugs needed to carry out lethal injection. DeWine indicated no executions would be carried out until the

Ohio General Assembly The Ohio General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio. It consists of the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives and the 33-member Ohio Senate. Both houses of the General Assembly meet at the Ohio Statehouse in Colu ...

approves a new method of execution. As a result, Van Hook remains the last person executed in Ohio by lethal injection. If no new alternative execution method is found, he will also remain the last person executed in the state of Ohio.

Background

On February 18, 1985, 25-year-old Robert J. Van Hook went to a bar in downtown

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, which was popular among gay men. At the bar, he met 25-year-old David Self. The two left the bar together and went to Self's Hyde Park apartment where Van Hook attacked Self and strangled him until he was unconscious. He then stabbed Self to death with a knife that he took from the kitchen, ransacked the apartment, stole some jewelry, mutilated Self's body, and fled to

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale ( ) is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and most populous city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the ...

. He evaded detection until April 1, 1985, when he was arrested by Oakland Park police.

Trial

Van Hook was indicted for the offenses of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery. He confessed the murder to police and admitted his motive had been to lure a gay man with the intention of robbing him. According to court records, Van Hook had been robbing gay men since the age of 15. At his trial, Van Hook pleaded

not guilty by reason of insanity Not or NOT may also refer to: Language * Not, the general declarative form of "no", indicating a negation of a related statement that usually precedes * ... Not!, a grammatical construction used as a contradiction, popularized in the early 1990 ...

and chose to have his case heard by a

three-judge panel A judicial panel is a set of judges who sit together to hear a cause of action, most frequently an appeal from a ruling of a trial court judge. Panels are used in contrast to single-judge appeals, and hearings, which involves all of the judges of ...

instead of a jury. Van Hook was convicted of the crime and was

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

on July 30, 1985.

Homosexual panic defense

Van Hook's case garnered national attention when his defense team claimed "

homosexual panic "Homosexual panic" is a term coined by American psychiatrist Edward J. Kempf in 1920 for a condition of " panic due to the pressure of uncontrollable perverse sexual cravings". Kempf classified this condition as an acute pernicious dissociati ...

" may have prompted the killing. However, his gay panic defense failed, with the courts noting Van Hook's history of robbing gay men prior to the murder of Self.

Execution

The execution of Van Hook took place on July 18, 2018, at the

in Lucasville, Ohio. His

last meal A condemned prisoner's last meal is a customary ritual preceding execution. In many countries, the prisoner may, within reason, select what the last meal will be. Contemporary restrictions in the United States Contrary to the common belief t ...

consisted of double cheeseburgers, fries, strawberry cheesecake with whipped cream, a vanilla milkshake, and grapefruit juice. In his final statement he apologized to the family of Self and recited an adapted Norse prayer which appeared in the movie '' The 13th Warrior''. Van Hook was executed via

using a combination of three drugs;

midazolam Midazolam, sold under the brand name Versed among others, is a benzodiazepine medication used for anesthesia, premedication before surgical anesthesia, and procedural sedation, and to treat psychomotor agitation, severe agitation. It induces ...

, rocuronium bromide and

potassium chloride Potassium chloride (KCl, or potassium salt) is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. It is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance. The solid dissolves readily in water, and its solutions have a sa ...

. He was pronounced dead at 10:44 a.m. EST.

Future of capital punishment in Ohio

Van Hook's execution continued to attract attention. Following his execution via lethal injection, controversy arose regarding Ohio's execution protocol. In January 2019, a federal judge ruled that Ohio's execution protocol could cause inmates severe pain and needless suffering. Because of this, Governor

, who assumed office as the

governor of Ohio A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the type of political region or polity, a ''governor'' ma ...

(also in January 2019), ordered the Ohio prison system to look at alternative lethal injection drugs that could be used in any future execution. He also delayed all pending executions in Ohio. He later froze all executions in Ohio indefinitely as the state struggled to find any new lethal injection drugs. The execution of Van Hook garnered new attention in December 2020, when DeWine announced that lethal injection would no longer be an option for any future execution in Ohio. DeWine was quoted as saying "Lethal injection appears to us to be impossible from a practical point of view today." DeWine ruled that lawmakers must choose a different method of execution for death row inmates before they can be put to death in the future. He also said that no executions would occur in Ohio in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, which had not executed any inmate since Van Hook in

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

. DeWine, who still supports capital punishment, is far more skeptical of the practice because of the long delays between crime and punishment. He also claimed to mainly support capital punishment because he believed it acted as a deterrent to crime, something he is now less sure of. Because of the new ruling, Van Hook remains the last person executed in Ohio by lethal injection. DeWine also stated that he does not see much support in selecting a new method of execution as a priority, meaning Ohio is unlikely to execute any inmate for a while, or possibly even indefinitely. This could also mean Van Hook will remain the last person executed in the state of Ohio, if a new method of execution is not selected or approved. , Van Hook remains the most recent person to be executed by the state of Ohio, which has gone over five years without an execution. The future of capital punishment in the state is still unclear.

References