Ohio State law professors agreed Thursday that the decision to enforce capital punishment with Friday’s scheduled execution of Wilford Berry should be made very carefully and not without vocal protests.The law professors debated the ethics and legality of capital punishment at a panel session in Drinko Hall. Berry was convicted for the murder of a Cleveland baker, Charles S. Mitroff Jr., in December 1989. Berry has become known as “The Volunteer” because he has tried to waive his rights to legal appeals and asked to be executed. Ohio has not executed a death-row prisoner since 1963.Protests of the execution are a positive sign, considering many people think the state should give Berry what he wants and stop wasting taxpayers’ money, said panelist Douglas Berman, an assistant professor of law.”What’s most important here is that the decision to impose the death penalty should be very hard,” Berman said. “I think it’s always worth the time and always worth the energy. It’s the type of thing we should never feel comfortable doing.”John Quigley, another panelist and law professor, said he does not believe the state has proven Berry’s mental competency.”Berry has suffered from mental illness from a very early age, there is no question of that. He was suicidal and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia,” Quigley said.The Ohio Supreme Court has refused to disclose the basis on which it determined Berry’s mental competency. Ohio statute requires the information to be released, but because it has not been requested in court, this has not been enforced, he said.Law professor and discussion moderator Louis Jacobs referred to a recent case in Illinois where a group of student journalists at Northwestern University exonerated Anthony Porter, an inmate on death row for 17 years. He asked the panelists to consider the possibility of punishing the innocent with the death penalty.”If we have the death penalty, we are going to end up executing innocent people. It is just a question of how many,” Quigley said.Berman said there is a definite problem with the way the death penalty is imposed.”There has been a certain unwillingness to fund protection methods that insure the death penalty is justly and lawfully imposed,” he said. After the discussion, Quigley stated that he thought the Berry case was a good one for clemency.”Clemency was created especially for cases like this where the legal system can’t cope and the Governor should step in,” he said. “Berry is as much a victim as he is a perpetrator. He has been failed by the system.”Berman added that the argument that Berry’s execution will lead to a wave of executions is a weak one.”The case is legally insignificant to other cases because Berry is not contesting the process,” he said. “Psychologically though, it could make it much easier for people to accept the death penalty once the first one is overcome.”He concluded that people must realize the moral importance and significance of using the ultimate punishment in society and whether citizens would feel comfortable if one did not exist.