WARREN Hearing set on killer's penalty

The convicted killer is scheduled to be sentenced next month.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County juries apply the death penalty disproportionately to black defendants, a defense attorney says.
A hearing will be held Tuesday before Judge John Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court so Atty. Anthony Consoldane can argue that point on behalf of his client, Nathaniel Jackson.
Jackson is black.
A jury recommended last week that Jackson, 30, of Youngstown, convicted of killing a Howland businessman, be sentenced to death.
Whether Jackson is given the death penalty is up to Judge Stuard. Sentencing is scheduled for next month. The judge can decide to reduce Jackson's sentence to life in prison without parole, or 25 to 30 years.
"I had two other capital murder cases in the past few years and both those defendants were white and both received life in prison without parole," said Consoldane. "One of those defendants raped and killed a girl and the other killed two elderly people."
Mitigating factors
In those cases, however, the defendants had more mitigating circumstances than Jackson, prosecutors say.
George Foster, who was convicted of killing Bridget Wetzl, had a history of mental illness, and Scott Burrows, convicted of killing Dorothy and Charles London, was 19 and had a history of being abused and neglected as a child, court records state.
"There was less mitigation in this case than in the other cases," county Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said. "The character and background of this defendant resembled Stanley Adams and Jason Getsy, who both received the death penalty. Race has nothing to do with this case."
Adams and Getsy are both white.
Adams was convicted of killing Esther Cook and her 12-year-old daughter, Ashley. Getsy was convicted of killing Ann Serafino of Hubbard. Both men are on death row.
Jackson was convicted two weeks ago in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court of aggravated murder, burglary and robbery, with firearms specifications.
Businessman's slaying
Jackson and Donna Roberts, 57, of Howland, were charged with killing Robert Fingerhut in his Fonderlac Drive Southeast residence Dec. 11, 2001. She is scheduled to go on trial in April.
Fingerhut owned the Greyhound bus terminals in Warren and Youngstown. Roberts and Fingerhut were divorced but were living together.
Consoldane said that Jackson has a low IQ and has shown that he adapts well to prison.
Watkins, however, disagreed, saying that when Jackson was in prison last year, he plotted with Roberts to kill Fingerhut.
During the trial, Watkins produced numerous letters written by Jackson to Roberts, which he said showed the two were planning Fingerhut's murder.
Watkins said the letters showed Jackson and Roberts kept in touch while Jackson was an inmate in Lorain Correctional Institution.
Jackson was released from prison Dec. 9 after serving one year on a conviction out of Mahoning County on two counts of receiving stolen property.
sinkovich@vindy.com