PREPARING THE ULTIMATE PENALTY

It was 32 years ago. No glaring TV lights illuminated the century-old Ohio Penitentiary. No crowds decrying - or supporting - the death penalty stood vigil outside the high concrete walls.

Reinbolt, a 28-year-old, part-time auto mechanic convicted of killing a Columbus grocer, was the 315th person to die in the state's electric chair. Before the turn of the century, hundreds of others had been hanged by the state.

If not routine, capital punishment was certainly not unusual for the most serious of crimes.

But as Reinbolt walked the corridor to the Death House clutching a crucifix

and saying prayers, no one knew that Ohio's law, and similar laws across the country, would in time be ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

No one knew that it would be 18 years before Ohio would be able to pass a new death-penalty law that met the high court's standards. Nor did anyone envision changes in the legal system that would delay individual cases and push the time between Reinbolt's death and the next execution beyond three decades.

The passage of time, continued debate about state-sanctioned death, and heightened concerns about violent crime all ensure that the next person to walk the Death House corridor will not die in obscurity.

For nearly a year, the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction - overseer of the Ohio prison system and Death Row's landlord - has been preparing for the next execution.

"We got a taste of what it will be like last spring," department spokesman Joe Andrews said. He was referring to the case of John W. Byrd Jr., who came within 45 minutes of being the man who followed Reinbolt and whose circumstances best illustrate the current state of the law.

Byrd was convicted in 1983 of killing a Cincinnati store clerk and was sentenced to die under the state's then-relatively new death-penalty law.

His lawyers immediately filed an appeal, and the case began winding its way through the state appellate court system. In Reinbolt's case, such legal appeals took two years to be completed. Byrd has lost three appeals and has been in court for 12 years.

He came close to death last year only because a federal judge took a very unusual step in dismissing his fourth appeal and then-state Attorney General Lee Fisher, who was facing re-election in the fall, pushed to carry out the sentence.

Byrd had ordered his last meal: T-bone steak and Caesar's salad. Under a new state law, he was given the choice of death by electrocution or lethal injection. He chose electrocution.

Only one task remained before he would be strapped in the chair - shaving his head and leg so the electrodes could be attached - when the U.S. Supreme Court granted his request for additional appeals.

When word spread that Byrd was on his way to the death chamber, the correction department was deluged with phone calls. "We had so many media requests, both for information about what was happening and about covering the event," Andrews said. "We also heard from other groups with an interest in the situation."

Since then, the department has reviewed and refined its policies in anticipation that the next such case will more likely result in the sentence being completed.

The state had already paid $40,000 to an Arkansas electrician to add a new generator to "Old Sparky" and to recondition the wooden chair that was built in 1897 by prisoner Charles Justice, who died in it 14 years later. The chair now delivers about 1,800 volts of electricity.

The department has been working with local officials in Scioto County on crowd-control plans and has drafted policies governing who will witness the execution and what requests can be granted to the inmate.

"The details are in place," Andrews said.

Of course, the most important detail - who will be strapped either into the chair or onto a hospital gurney - won't be known for some time.

There are 148 men on Death Row. Their legal appeals are in various stages in the court system, and because of the differences in legal arguments and the judges assigned to the cases, it's difficult to single out individuals.

But one case has proceeded further than any other. The inmate, John Glenn, was convicted of murder a decade ago in Mahoning County in northeast Ohio. His last appeal was heard in April in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

"Looking at the history of recent cases, if the appeal is denied, it would likely be some time next year before the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case," said Greg Ayers, who heads the death-penalty section for the Ohio Public Defender's Office.

"I would say it would be 18 to 20 months minimum before a death sentence could be carried out in Ohio," Ayers said. "That's unless an inmate gives up his appeals, which has not happened and is not likely."

Once a death sentence is carried out, Ayers and others concede, it's likely Ohio will follow the path of other states where the death chambers have seen a steady flow of prisoners.

According to public opinion polls and election results, that would be welcomed by the majority of Ohioans. Al Tuchfarber, director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati, found in his "Ohio Poll" that 86 percent of those surveyed support the death penalty for premeditated murder.

In November, voters overwhelmingly supported changing state law to drop one step in the appeals process so that cases would go directly to the state Supreme Court. Supporters said it would speed up implementation of death sentences.

Once all legal steps are exhausted, the only person who could stop a scheduled execution is the governor. For eight years, from 1982 to 1990, Gov. Richard F. Celeste opposed the death penalty but never had to decide a prisoner's final fate.

It's likely that Gov. George Voinovich, who has supported capital punishment throughout his long public career, will face that decision.

Since the close call last year with John Byrd, Pope John Paul II has issued an encyclical saying capital punishment should be used only in rare circumstances.

Voinovich, a devout Catholic, is aware of the papal message but, according to aides, has not changed his opinion.

"He has taken an oath to uphold the laws of the state of Ohio," press secretary Mike Dawson said, "and he plans to do that."

A simpler process: Wanda Vallandingham (left), mother of a slain Lucasville prison guard, and friend Mary Cox await the legislative decision that limited death penalty appeals.