(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) While transgenderism is being pushed by the Left as a panacea to excuse all manner of social and sexual deviancies, one thing it cannot do is help convicted murderers escape their fate in Ohio, according to a recent ruling from the state Supreme Court.
Victoria Drain, formerly Joel Drain, appealed to the court to annul a death sentence because Drain’s lawyers failed to account for gender dypshoria, the Daily Wire reported.
But the high court ruled 7–0 to uphold Drain’s conviction and 6–1 to keep the death penalty.
“The Court has carefully considered the nature and circumstances of the offense to determine if there is any mitigating value,” the majority wrote in the opinion.
“There is not,” it continued, adding that “the crime itself was violent, intensely personal and carried out in a brutal fashion.”
In addition to gender dysphoria, Drain reportedly suffers from a litany of other mental illnesses, including borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Drain was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 2019 after trying to enlist a fellow inmate, Christopher Richardson, in a conspiracy to kill another inmate whom Drain believed to be a convicted child rapist.
When Richardson refused to conspire with Drain in the murder, Drain turned against him.
Drain hit, stabbed, and then strangled Richardson, fearing that he would alert prison authorities and reveal the plot.
Apparently, Drain did not realize that the authorities would find Richardson’s body.
Before the murder, Drain was serving a 38-year sentence at Warren Correctional Institution for stabbing and strangling a man in Hancock County, Ohio in 2016.
Drain’s attorneys appealed the conviction and sentence on the grounds that their client had suffered trauma as a child, had harmed himself while growing up, and had been transferred to a psychiatric ward after trying to castrate himself.
The court decided that the “the aggravating circumstances outweigh” Drain’s personal struggles “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and that the death penalty ensures an “appropriate and proportionate” punishment.
Democrat Justice Jennifer Brunner dissented from the majority, arguing that the court should reconsider Drain’s mental illness and past trauma before affirming the death sentence.
Prosecutors said Drain told lawyers not to use gender dysphoria and past trauma in their defense, CBS News reported.
