One Mother’s Long Wait For Justice « NewsReal Blog

One Mother’s Long Wait For Justice « NewsReal Blog: "Twenty-five years ago, Romell Broom, a pedophile who had previously served time for the savage rape of a 12-year-old girl, abducted 14-year-old Tyra Middleton on the street at knifepoint, brutally raped her, and then stabbed her to death. Her body was found in a nearby abandoned parking lot.

At his trial, Broom received the death penalty, and has spent the time since doggedly fighting to have his death sentence overturned. His defense team has recently begun to employ a “blame-the-victim” strategy, portraying the young girl as having had a “sexually active lifestyle.”

The appallingly insensitive tactics employed by Broom’s defense team in portraying the young victim of his crime as somehow deserving of being brutally raped and stabbed to death led Tyra’s exasperated mother to exclaim:

If you had a daughter, would you want me to belittle her as you have my daughter? I know you are an attorney and you have a job to do, but I do not appreciate it.

Broom was scheduled to die in October 2007. At that time, he received a stay of execution by joining another inmate’s challenge of the constitutionality of Ohio’s legal injection method. As that stay was subsequently dismissed, his new execution date was scheduled last month on September 15."