OHIO----impending execution

Mansfield, Ohio - In the upside-down world of Adremy Dennis, Kurt Kyle "ended up dead" because he moved when Dennis warned him not to.

Dennis (whose 1st name is pronounced Ad-REM-ey) believes he is simply one good lawyer away from walking the streets a free man. Absent that miracle, the 28-year-old Akron man will be executed Oct. 13 for the June 5, 1994, shotgun slaying of Kyle, an amateur race car driver from Akron.

In a death row interview Monday at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, Dennis said he believes that an incompetent jury and inept lawyers are the
reason he is about to become the youngest inmate in 42 years to be executed in Ohio. He also believes that Kyle bears part of the responsibility for his own murder.

Dennis shot Kyle, 29, after he and a co-defendant, Leroy Anderson, held up Kyle and a friend in front of Kyle's house as Kyle was celebrating a victory at the Barberton Speedway. Dennis was 18 when he shot Kyle. Anderson, who was 17, was sentenced to 40 years to life.

"At that time, I was young and dumb," the 6-foot-6, 200-pound inmate said.
"I was drunk. I told this man, 'Don't move.' I ain't saying it's all his
fault, but why did he move?
"Every day, I think about that. It ain't, 'Why did you kill that man?'
It's, 'Why did you move?' I think about that every day - sometimes 1,000
times a day."

Kyle's mother, Doreen, was angered, but not surprised, to learn that Dennis still does not accept full responsibility for shooting her son.

"It's absolutely ridiculous," she said. "I never addressed him at his trial because he just sat there, slumped, and acted like, 'Why am I here, what did I do, who do they think they are?'"

By a 5-3 vote, the Ohio Parole Board recommended Sept. 21 that Gov. Bob Taft deny Dennis' request that his sentence be commuted to life without parole. The majority cited Dennis' "lack of sincere remorse."

If the governor is waiting for an 11th-hour expression of contrition from Dennis, he isn't likely to hear one. Asked what he would say to Taft, Dennis said, "It ain't going to be about I'm sorry. It's going to be about I ain't had no legal representation. They hung me, from trial all the way through my appeals. I ain't been on death row 10 years yet. There's guys been here 20 years, and they're going to kill me? Something's wrong. . . . I ain't supposed to be here."

Dennis believes he should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, not aggravated murder.

"I should be in prison for what I've done, but with a possible out date," he said. "Not for life. Accidents happen, you know what I mean? . . . You have to learn to forgive. People are going to make mistakes. This ain't heaven, and we ain't Jesus."

He is insistent that his legal case is so "twisted" that one good lawyer could untangle the Gordian knot and set him free.

"I could be something great, man," he said. "I could have anything I want. I know that. . . . I want mansions and yachts and private planes and things like that."

Told that he sounds like he's living in a fantasy world, Dennis smiled and said, "I keep my mind positive. I might not get those mansions and yachts I'm talking about, but if - there's always if.

"Until I'm in the graveyard, there's always if or maybe, and that's how I
plan on living."

(source: Plain Dealer)