Four were participants in the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, including Jason Robb of Dayton. Dean twice assaulted corrections officers, LoParo said.
“He had assaulted a guard at the prison (by) making a shank out of a toothbrush. I know he had another assault on a guard where he took a razor blade out of a razor and cut a guard (and) bit a guard’s face,” said Andy Wilson, Clark County Prosecutor.
The six will remain at Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, where some of the state’s death row inmates have been housed since 2005, LoParo said.
The move will consolidate death row, currently spread between the Youngstown facility and Mansfield Correctional Institution, into one unit at Chillicothe, LoParo said.
The consolidation will add hundreds of maximum security prison cells at the Mansfield and Youngstown facilities, which will be used to separate the state’s most violent and difficult-to-manage inmates from the general prison population, LoParo said.
In a retrial in September, Dean, 37, was convicted of killing Titus Arnold, a youth counselor, in 2005. Dean and a 16-year-old accomplice, Joshua Wade, robbed Arnold of $6 as he left work.
Prosecutors said Dean tried to shoot Arnold, but his gun jammed, so he manipulated Wade into shooting Arnold. The crimes were part of a 13-day spree by the two after Dean was released from prison after serving five years on a theft charge.
But it’s his violence behind bars that’s earned him an isolation cell in Youngstown until his execution.
A search through hundreds of pages documenting Dean’s history in Ohio’s prison system turned up numerous acts of violence.
Dean was convicted of attempted escape and vandalism for throwing a chair through the ballistics glass window of the Clark County Jail last spring. A cell search in the Madison Correctional Facility in 1995 turned up a handmade knife Dean admitted to making. In 2004, guards confiscated a 18-inch piece of metal sharpened to look like a sword that Dean taped to his arm while in the recreation yard.
In addition, Dean was documented for numerous assaults against other inmates dating back to the early 1990s.
There’s no question at the Clark County prosecutor’s office, Wilson said, that “as long as he’s breathing,” Dean is a danger.
“Even being locked up he’s still a danger to everyone he comes into contact with,” Wilson said.
The other inmates who will stay in Youngstown are: James Were, 54; Keith Lamar, 42; Carlos Sanders, 48; Jason Robb, 44; and Edward Lang, 24.
Lang has assaulted a correction officer. The other four were participants in the Lucasville riot.
Corrections Officer Robert Vallandingham, 40, and nine inmates were killed during the 11-day uprising in April 1993 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.
Lamar was sentenced to death for killing five of the inmates, Robb for killing Vallandingham and one inmate, Were for killing Vallandingham and Sanders for ordering Vallandingham’s death.
Robb was convicted of a 1984 homicide in Montgomery County.
Lang was convicted in Stark County Common Pleas Court of killing two men during a 2006 drug rip-off in Canton.
LoParo said “Level 1” includes inmates who are the least likely to engage in violent acts and are likely convicted of crimes not involving violence. These inmates are housed in a dormitory-type environment, with multiple inmates being held in the same area and sleeping in bunk beds, LoParlo said.
In contrast, a “Level 4” inmate has committed a violent act against a guard or inmate or participated in gang and disruptive activities on at least one occasion. Depending on the severity, LoParlo said the inmate could be held in total isolation or have very restricted access to the general prison population.
In the case of a “Level 5,” LoParlo said those inmates have a “significant history of engaging in violent activity.” They are contained in isolated cells 23 hours a day, and are allowed one hour of recreation alone. Meals, religious services and classes are all completed in isolation, he said.
Not all death row inmates are classified by the state as violent.
In 2009 and 2010, DRC recorded 5,070 violent incidents throughout its prisons. While 206 occurred at the Mansfield Correctional Institution and 63 occurred at the Ohio State Penitentiary, only five included death row inmates, the state said.
Ohio has 148 death row inmates, and the lone female is at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. Two with serious medical conditions are housed at the Franklin Medical Center in Columbus. These inmates will remain at those facilities.
As of October, there were 116 death row inmates at Ohio State and 29 at Mansfield, according to the corrections department.
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