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Home News Cases and articles David Bodiker, public defender who fought executions, dies David Bodiker, public defender who fought executions, dies
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Published on Sunday Jan 27, 2008
David Bodiker, the state's former public defender who was an advocate for inmates on death row and an outspoken defender of the poor in Ohio's courts, has died. He was 73.
Bodiker served as Ohio Public Defender from 1994 until he retired this month. In recent years, he challenged the effectiveness of Ohio's lethal injection method.
He died Friday night after undergoing emergency heart surgery, according to his daughter, Amy Bodiker.
"He was a staunch advocate for the underserved in the criminal justice system," she said Sunday. "He loved what he did."
Bodiker began his legal career as an assistant Franklin County prosecutor. In private practice, before he was the state's public defender, he won acquittals in three death penalty cases.
Soon after becoming public defender, Bodiker began a fight to save Wilford Berry, who robbed and murdered Cleveland baker Charles Mitroff. His office enlisted Pope John Paul II, sought clemency from two governors and filed documents in six courts.
Bodiker argued that Berry suffered from mental illness and should be sentenced instead to life in prison. But Berry was executed in 1999, the first execution in Ohio in nearly 36 years.
His office was able to get other death sentences reduced to life terms. Bodiker also helped bring recent cases to the Ohio Supreme Court that won juveniles stronger representation rights in court, said Amanda Powell, an attorney in the Ohio Public Defender's juvenile section.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com