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Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008
Ohio Governor Commutes Death Sentence
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Death row inmate John Spirko wanted a pardon or the chance to leave prison and prove his innocence. He got neither, though he did escape execution.
Gov. Ted Strickland commuted Spirko's death sentence to life in prison on Wednesday, a week after the state attorney general's office said it had concluded no DNA evidence linked Spirko to a 26-year-old murder.
Strickland made clear he wasn't convinced of Spirko's innocence. But he said he couldn't ignore the lack of physical evidence linking Spirko to the 1982 slaying of Betty Jane Mottinger and "the slim residual doubt" about Spirko's responsibility for it.
Those factors make "the imposition of the death penalty inappropriate in this case," said Strickland, a death penalty supporter.
Spirko could leave death row for another prison as early as Thursday. He had received seven reprieves while the Ohio Parole Board reconsidered his case and DNA testing was conducted on material found near Mottinger's body.
Mottinger was abducted and repeatedly stabbed in northwestern Ohio, then wrapped in a tarp and dumped in a field. Her body was found three weeks later.
Spirko's attorneys had asked for a full pardon, a conditional pardon or a commutation to time served, all of which would have allowed Spirko to be released.
Strickland said state and federal courts reviewed and upheld Spirko's conviction and the parole board twice rejected his petition for clemency. Under the commutation order, Spirko will not be eligible for parole.
"At times, when he wasn't denying having committed the murder, he appears to have admitted doing so," Strickland said. "Spirko's claims that his own lies led to his conviction for an offense that he did not commit are unpersuasive in the face of the judicial scrutiny this case has received."
A message seeking comment was left with Mottinger's daughter.
Spirko's attorneys said they were disappointed that Strickland did not free him.
"There can be no joy in the commutation of an innocent man's sentence to life without parole," attorneys Tom Hill and Alvin Dunn said in a statement.
"The positive thing about Gov. Strickland's commutation is that the state will now not execute an innocent man and that we can, and will, continue to fight for Mr. Spirko's complete exoneration and release," the statement said.
Spirko, 61, is the second Ohio death row inmate in a week to avoid execution after a long legal struggle. On Monday, U.S. and British citizen Ken Richey entered a plea deal that allowed him to accept a sentence of time already served and leave the United States. He arrived in Scotland on Wednesday.
Richey, 43, was on death row for more than 20 years before an appeals court overturned his death sentence last year.
He pleaded no contest to attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangering, and breaking and entering related to a 1986 fire that killed 2-year-old Cynthia Collins.
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Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo and Ben McConville in Edinburgh, Scotland, contributed to this report.
2008-01-10 08:58:05 GMT
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Statement Regarding Clemency Application of John G. Spirko
Columbus, Ohio – Governor Ted Strickland today issued the following statement regarding the pending clemency application of John G. Spirko:
"John Spirko was convicted, by a jury, of a heinous murder. At times, when he wasn't denying having committed the murder, he appears to have admitted doing so. Ohio and federal trial, appellate and supreme courts reviewed his conviction and upheld it. Alibi claims and claims regarding evidentiary weaknesses, including more recently developed theories and interpretations of evidence, were considered by those courts and rejected. In addition, Governor Taft and I granted Mr. Spirko, collectively, seven reprieves to allow for the analysis of DNA related to the case. Once completed, these DNA tests neither exonerated Mr. Spirko nor implicated him or anyone else.
The Ohio Parole Board twice unanimously recommended against clemency for Mr. Spirko. Most recently, in 2005, six members of the Board recommended against clemency and three recommended that Mr. Spirko be allowed time to exhaust newly developed legal theories in the courts. Mr. Spirko was ultimately allowed that opportunity and his claims were rejected. Mr. Spirko's claims that his own lies led to his conviction for an offense that he did not commit are unpersuasive in the face of the judicial scrutiny this case has received. Nonetheless, I have concluded that the lack of physical evidence linking him to the murder, as well as the slim residual doubt about his responsibility for the murder that arises from careful scrutiny of the case record and revelations about the case over the past 20 years, makes the imposition of the death penalty inappropriate in this case.
In making this determination, my staff and I conducted a thorough review of the judicial decisions associated with this matter, the Adult Parole Authority's reports and recommendations, letters received in the Office of the Governor and by the parole board, the arguments and exhibits presented at the Parole Board hearing, the arguments presented by Mr. Spirko's counsel in favor of clemency, recordings of various interviews, relevant photographs, newspaper analyses of this matter and Mr. Spirko's institutional mental health records.
Based on this review, I have decided to commute Mr. Spirko's sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole."
A copy of the warrant of commutation of sentence is included below:
Warrant of Commutation of Sentence
John Spirko, Jr., #A171-433 was convicted of the crime of Aggravated Murder with a Death Penalty Specification and sentenced by the Van Wert County Common Pleas Court to death.
Mr. Spirko is currently incarcerated in the custody of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and is scheduled to be executed on January 24, 2008.
I find that Mr. Spirko's claim that his own lies led to his conviction for an offense that he did not commit is unpersuasive in the face of the judicial scrutiny this case has received.
I also find that the lack of physical evidence linking Mr. Spirko to the above-mentioned murder, combined with the slim residual doubt about his responsibility for the murder arising from a careful scrutiny of the case record and revelations about the case over the past 20 years, makes the imposition of the death penalty in this case inappropriate.
Accordingly, I direct that the sentence of death of John Spirko be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
I signed this Warrant of Commutation on January 9, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio.
____________________
Ted Strickland, Governor
Statement of John Spirko's attorneys:
Filed this 9th day of January, 2008 with the Van Wert County Common Pleas Clerk of Court by Jose A. Torres
John Spirko is an innocent man who has spent 25 very long and hard years in prison -- 23 on death row -- for a crime he did not commit. There can be no joy in the commutation of an innocent man's sentence to life without parole. The positive thing about Governor Strickland's commutation is that the State will now not execute an innocent man and that we can, and will, continue to fight for Mr. Spirko's complete exoneration and release.
We had told Governor Strickland that Mr. Spirko was prepared to waive all his constitutional rights to allow the Van Wert County Prosecutor to again try him and seek the death penalty in a fair and honest trial -- not the trial he got in 1984, filled as it was with false evidence and a false theory of the case. All Mr. Spirko has ever asked for was to be judged fairly and honestly. We all now know that there is absolutely not one shred of evidence -- physical, forensic or otherwise -- linking Mr. Spirko to this crime. The recent DNA and fingerprint results for which we waited more than two years confirm that Mr. Spirko was not present at the crime scenes. Objectively corroborated evidence confirms that Mr. Spirko was meeting in Toledo with his parole officer at the very time this crime was being committed in Elgin, 100 miles away.
We will continue to urge Governor Strickland and Attorney General Dann to review Mr. Spirko's claims of actual innocence so that justice will be served by Mr. Spirko's release from prison and by finally prosecuting those actually responsible for Mrs. Mottinger's murder.
Tom Hill
Alvin Dunn
