Death warrant More than 16 years after the murders, on April 9, 2009, state prosecutors filed applications to the
Ohio Supreme Court to schedule the execution date of Marvallous Keene, who had exhausted all his avenues of appeal at this point in time. On May 6, 2009, by a majority decision of 6–1, the Ohio Supreme Court approved and signed a death warrant for Keene, and ordered that his death sentence should be carried out on July 21, 2009. In response to Keene's death warrant, an appeal was lodged to delay his execution, but the Ohio Supreme Court refused to halt the execution. Apart from this, the Ohio Supreme Court also ruled that for the future executions scheduled beforehand, including Keene's, they would be conducted every three weeks apart of each other. A clemency hearing was conducted for Keene, even though he did not request for clemency. The hearing convened before a seven-member panel of the Ohio Parole Board, who heard the case to decide whether to recommend clemency. Rhonda Gullette, whose sister Danita was shot and killed by Keene, represented 15 family members of Keene's victims and told the board that she wrote a letter to Keene, asking him why he killed her sister, but Keene never wrote back, and she told the board about the devastating impact of her sister's death to their family. During the hearing, Keene directed his lawyers Kelly Schneider and Rachel Troutman to not submit any evidence in mitigation, so as to not prolong the pain of his victim's surviving kin. As part of the opposition to clemency, both Carley Ingram, the appellate division chief for the Montgomery County prosecutor's office, and Assistant Attorney General Thomas Madden urged the board to consider the gravity of the crimes, for which Keene's guilt was not put in question and affirmed by the courts. Ingram also said that Keene showed no remorse for his actions, and his sole concern has been for himself and his predicament after the murders. In the end, the parole board unanimously voted 7–0 to recommend that the governor reject clemency for Keene. After the loss of his clemency plea, during his final days on death row, Keene did not file any last-minute appeals to stave off his execution. On the eve of his execution, Keene was transferred to the death house, where he would be under 24-hour death watch surveillance before the execution commenced. Reportedly, Keene did not request to meet with family members, and none of them were known to be attending his execution.
Execution On July 21, 2009, 36-year-old Marvallous Keene was put to death via
lethal injection at the
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Keene was documented as the 1,000th death row inmate in the U.S. to be executed by lethal injection since its first use in 1982. Keene was also the 1,171st death row convict to be put to death since the 1976 resumption of capital punishment in the U.S. Prior to his execution, Keene ordered a final meal of one
Porterhouse steak with
A-1 sauce, one pound of jumbo fried shrimp with cocktail sauce,
French fries and onion rings, a tube of
Pillsbury dinner rolls and butter, two plums, a mango, one pound of seedless white grapes,
German chocolate cake, two bottles of
Pepsi and two bottles of
A&W Cream Soda. When asked if he had a final statement before his execution, Keene said, "No, I have no words." It was also noted that Ohio scheduled the execution dates of the condemned at an unusually high rate during that year of 2009 itself, with at least one death warrant per month, and Keene was one of the five executed in Ohio that same year. Keene was the 31st condemned inmate to be executed in Ohio since the state's resumption of executions in 1999. ==Incarceration of Matthews, Taylor and Smith==