Law-enforcement officials are disputing claims by death-row inmate Alva Campbell that he's too sick to be put to death, as his attorneys and advocates say.

Campbell, 69, says that severe respiratory ailments make it impossible for him to lie flat on the table in Ohio's death chamber without gasping and choking while corrections officials administer a lethal injection. But in a response to Campbell's request for clemency, state officials said Campbell has employed that tactic in the past.

"It is ironic that poor health would be considered as a factor in mercy for Campbell to escape the death sentence earned by his life of crime," the response says. "He faked poor health i.e., paralysis that caused a wheelchair transport that enabled his escape and the carjacking/murder of Charles Dials. As judgment day nears he again resorts to ill health as a reason to enable an escape from his capital sentence — and should not be permitted to do so."

The convicted killer is slated for execution Nov. 15 and Campbell is scheduled for a clemency hearing Thursday morning.

His legal team is asking that Gov. John Kasich commute his sentence to life in prison. Or, failing that, the attorneys are asking Kasich to delay Campbell's execution for a year, expecting him to die in the interim.

Campbell's attorneys say he is debilitated by cardiopulmonary issues. Most of his right lung has been removed, and he has emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and possibly cancer in much of his remaining lung tissue, Campbell's application for executive clemency says. In addition, his prostate gland has been removed, as has a gangrenous colon. A broken hip last year has confined him to a walker.

Also justifying mercy for Campbell, his attorneys say, was a nightmarish childhood of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of a drunken father.

But Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, who at the time of Campbell's trial called him "the poster child for the death penalty," don't believe Campbell is entitled to mercy.

"Limited mental capacity, a diagnosis of mental illness, diminished capacity, or mental retardation/developmental disability are also factors a governor reviews in the context of extending mercy," the state's response says. "Alva Campbell is a sociopath and not a person suffering from a mental illness. He was competent to stand trial, did not file an insanity plea, and despite examinations by mental health professionals has never been able to present a legitimate mental health basis to excuse his conduct or warrant mercy. His diagnosis at trial was a 'personality disorder.'"

Campbell's criminal history stretches back to 1967 and includes a string of armed robberies, shooting a State Highway Patrol trooper and stabbing another man. He was convicted of the 1972 robbery and murder of William Dovalosky in a Cleveland tavern.

Out on parole in 1997, Campbell engaged in another string of armed robberies and after his arrest he pretended to be paralyzed by a glancing bullet wound suffered during one of the robberies. As Campbell was being taken to the Franklin County Courthouse for a hearing on April 2, 1997, he sprang from his wheelchair, overpowered a deputy sheriff, took her gun and fled.

He then carjacked Dials, who was at the courthouse to pay a traffic ticket. After driving Dials around for hours, Campbell ordered him onto the floor of his truck and shot him twice.

The state is arguing that if Campbell hadn't escaped that day, he'd have been headed back to prison for the rest of his days, so a commutation of his sentence would amount to a free pass for killing Dials.

"Efforts now to reduce the sentence to life without parole would mean that Campbell would suffer no real sentence at all for the killing of Charles Dials," the state argues in its response to Campbell's plea for clemency.

"At the time Campbell needlessly killed Charles Dials, Campbell already could expect to receive the equivalent of a sentence of life without parole. He had violated parole on his 1972 first-degree murder conviction, and he had committed a string of new aggravated robberies, all of which would ensure that defendant would spend the remainder of his life in prison. Even without being sentenced for killing Dials or for any of his other crimes occurring on April 2, 1997, Campbell’s parole eligibility date would be in the year 2085."

Even so — and even if clemency is denied Campbell — his physical condition could put the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in a difficult position.

"He's probably in the poorest health of any living death-row inmate in the country," said Kevin Werner of Ohioans to Stop Executions a group that is opposed to the death penalty.

The department hasn't responded to questions about how it might deal with Campbell's execution if clemency is denied.

Campbell is not the first condemned man in Ohio to use ill health to argue that he should be spared from execution. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Richard Cooey's claim that he was too obese to be executed. Cooey said his obesity could make it difficult for executioners to find a vein for a lethal injection. He was executed that year.

mschladen@dispatch.com

@martyschladen