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The Beacon Jounal
Taft Grants Two-Month Reprieve For Condemned Killer Set To Die Thu, Sep. 08, 2005
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. Bob Taft on Thursday delayed the execution of a condemned killer professing his innocence to allow for a second parole board hearing. The parole board earlier Thursday requested the delay of John Spirko's execution, citing questions about the accuracy of information presented to the board about the case on Aug. 23. Spirko, 59, was convicted of killing a northwest Ohio postmistress but says he didn't do it. The "persistent assertions that parties may have presented inaccurate information or misrepresented facts to the Parole Board causes serious concern," Gary Croft, the parole board chairman, wrote in a letter to Spirko's attorney. Taft said he supported the parole board's decision to call for a second hearing. He ordered the execution delayed until Nov. 15 to allow for the hearing. The reprieve, only the second of its type by Taft, followed reports that the state presented inaccurate information at Spirko's clemency hearing last month. The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported that Timothy Prichard, director of the attorney general's capital crimes office, made false statements and mischaracterized evidence regarding what Spirko knew about the 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, and his whereabouts on the day of the killing. After that report, Attorney General Jim Petro defended Prichard's presentation but said his office would participate should the Ohio Parole Board grant a new clemency hearing for Spirko. On Aug. 23, 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. Taft's decision was the first significant legal victory for Spirko, whose execution appeared imminent. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Carr turned down Spirko's request for a new trial and a delay, saying there was no reason to believe that investigators fraudulently hid evidence from Spirko's defense team. Ohio has executed 16 men since resuming executions in a 1999. In 2003, following the parole board's recommendation, Taft commuted the sentence of Jerome Campbellof Cincinnati to life in prison after questions were raised about evidence introduced at his trial. Spirko was charged after approaching authorities and offering to trade information about the Mottinger case to help his girlfriend who was facing charges in an unrelated case. He told investigators details of the 1982 slaying, including what clothes and jewelry Mottinger was wearing that day. But Spirko's lawyers counter that he thought he was telling authorities what they wanted to hear. They say what he knew came from newspapers and lengthy conversations he had with investigators. Petro stands by Spirko's conviction and sentence but supports Taft's decision for a rehearing, spokeswoman Kim Norris said Thursday. "The attorney general recognizes that as the most severe punishment the state can inflict for a crime, capital punishment requires an extraordinary degree of comprehensive due process," Norris said. A review last month of Spirko's case by The Associated Press found that Spirko faces execution while dozens of other killers charged the same year with similar or worse crimes under Ohio law escaped a death sentence. Prosecutors cited two factors in the state's capital punishment law when they charged Spirko in 1983: the murder occurred during a robbery, and Spirko had a previous murder conviction. Forty-seven other offenders charged in 1983 with death penalty crimes had two or more factors - called specifications under Ohio law - but only 10 were sentenced to death, the AP review found. Some of those indictments included cases such as Spirko's in which the crime was committed in 1982.
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