The Ohio Supreme Court as well as the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have both rejected arguments that a death row inmate is too obese to die by lethal injection. Richard Wade Cooey is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 267 pounds. He was convicted of the rape and murder of two University of Akron students in 1986.

Thus Cooey, 41, is scheduled for execution Tuesday, at 10 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, by lethal injection. He would be the first person to be put to death in the state since the end of a de facto moratorium on this execution method.

Cooey's attorneys said in briefs filed Tuesday with the Ohio Supreme Court and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prison food and limited exercising conditions contributed to a weight problem that would make it difficult for the execution team to find a viable vein to inject the fatal drugs. Lawyers also repeated another claim that headache medication prescribed by state doctors could reduce the effectiveness of an anesthetic administered during execution.

However this is not the first time authorities have responded to Cooey’s obesity issue. While sitting in the prison’s Death House in 2005 a federal judge blocked his execution.

State attorneys said previously that neither Cooey's weight nor the condition of his veins proves he would suffer "cruel and unusual punishment" if he is executed. Further, many of Cooey's arguments are recycled from previous appeals, the state said.