HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) -- Prosecutors say there should be no crying during closing arguments in death penalty cases. Jason Phillabaum, an assistant Butler County prosecutor, filed motions this week asking that defense attorneys be blocked from using emotional appeals to a jury during the trial and sentencing phase of an upcoming death penalty case.

"Specifically, defense attorneys have strategically been known to cry on cue and beg for their client's lives," according to the motions, which notes previous cases where defense attorneys have been admonished for crying in front of a jury during closing arguments.

The motions came following a trial last month in which attorney Greg Howard cried while urging jurors to spare his client, Harvey "Shawn" Johnson. Johnson received life in prison for the kidnapping and strangulation of Kiva Gazaway.

Howard will help represent James O'Hara in a death penalty case in August. O'Hara is accused of stabbing Stanley Lawson in a Middletown apartment complex.

Phillabaum and county Prosecutor Robin Piper declined to discuss the motions, but Piper said he thought a trained professional should be able to control emotions in court.

Howard called the motions "petty" and said he can't wait to argue against them in a July 18 hearing before Common Pleas Judge Andrew Nastoff in this southwest Ohio city.

"They want to kill my clients. They want to win at all costs," Howard said. "They are tired of losing, so they are trying to limit what I can say in my closing arguments."

He added that if he could cry on cue, he would be in Hollywood.

"It is emotional; you are trying to save your client's life. It just comes out," Howard said.

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What are your opinions?

I'm against the death penalty anyway so they can cry all they want to in my opinion.

death penalty shouldn't even exist

"It is emotional; you are trying to save your client's life. It just comes out," Howard said."
100% Agreed


But yeah the death penalty sucks..but man..eh..so many pros and cons..but ultimately there is no justification to killing someone as a punishment.

I agree.

The ONLY reasoning (and this is not justification) is to save money since it costs a lot to keep someone in jail for life. But people lives should be worth more than money (even though the person in prison likely didn't believe that himself).

I'm on the spot right now. The person killed someone, and deserves to be killed, yet at the same time killing doesn't justify anything.

even the murderers tortured and killed Matthew Shepard didn't get death penalty
though it wasn't considered hate crime in Wyoming, it was

i think death penalty is less torturous than life in prison.
it would make someone go mad after a while

Death penalty is ******** unless it's towards like a major criminal

If someone kills one person, send them to prison, try to reform their life. MAYBE release them later on but possibly not. Oh and make it so Texas can't give the ****ing death penalty anymore (They've done like 90% of the death penalties ever in the country)

We just need a prison island where we can send these people so they can live like savages and kill each other.

^I agree with everything you said except the "killing" part.