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OHIO NEWS NETWORK
State Attorney Acknowledges Misstatements That Led To Rare Hearing October 12, 2005 COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state's top lawyer for enforcing the death penalty acknowledged Wednesday that he made misstatements at a hearing about whether a condemned inmate's life should be spared. Regardless, the evidence is overwhelming that John Spirko committed murder, Deputy Attorney General Tim Prichard said at a rare second clemency hearing. Gov. Bob Taft delayed the death sentence for Spirko, convicted of killing a northwest Ohio postal worker, after a newspaper report that the state presented inaccurate information about what Spirko knew about the slaying and his whereabouts on the day it happened. For the first time since the state resumed executions in 1999, Taft allowed a second clemency hearing by the Ohio Parole Board. "We are human. Misstatements can occur," Prichard told the board, without mentioning a specific instance. "The proper place to flesh that out is here, not in the media four days later." Prichard had given the board a videotape of Spirko's original clemency hearing on Aug. 23. The tape backs Prichard's claims, said James Canepa, chief deputy attorney general of criminal justice. The board did not ask Prichard any questions about what he said on Aug. 23. "What is also sort of noteworthy here is that Spirko's presentation this time around surprisingly had nothing to do with what Tim did or didn't say at the first hearing," Canepa said. Prichard also played the board a videotape of Spirko on the witness stand at his trial. On the tape, Spirko acknowledged he was not coerced by a former postal inspector to discuss details of the crime with investigators, as defense lawyers have claimed. "I don't believe he (the inspector) would bum-rap someone for any price," Spirko says on the tape. Prichard said Spirko's words sealed the case for the jury. "The whole thing is what convicts John Spirko. This is why none of those jurors would change their minds," Prichard said. Defense attorney Thomas Hill said board members did not have all the evidence at Spirko's first hearing in August when they first recommended going ahead with execution. Now the board must "examine the totality of everything we now know," Hill said. "There are just too, too many doubts," he said. Spirko, 59, says he didn't kill Betty Jane Mottinger, the postmistress in Elgin, in 1982. Mottinger, 48, was abducted and stabbed nearly 20 times, wrapped in a curtain and dumped in a field. Her body was found three weeks later. No physical evidence linked Spirko to Mottinger or to the town of Elgin. Investigators never located the murder weapon or the car used in the crime. But prosecutors have said Spirko convicted himself by telling investigators details of the slaying, including what clothes and jewelry Mottinger was wearing the day she was abducted. A comparison of Prichard's statements to the parole board with the case record shows how he mischaracterized evidence, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported after the first clemency hearing. For example, Prichard told the parole board that a description of Mottinger's purse had to have come from Spirko because investigators didn't know what the missing purse looked like. But according to the case record, an investigator was given a very similar description of the purse by Mottinger's husband on the day his wife disappeared, 12 weeks before investigators discussed the purse with Spirko. Spirko was scheduled to die by injection Sept. 20, but Taft ordered the execution delayed until Nov. 15. After the first hearing, the parole board recommended with a 6-3 vote that Taft should not reduce the death sentence to life in prison. The parole board will make its second recommendation on Oct. 19.
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