OHIO SUPREME COURT Vrabel's death sentence upheld

Three justices felt Vrabel's sentence should be reduced to life in prison.
By MICHELE C. HLADIK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- A Struthers man convicted of killing his live-in companion and their 3-year-old daughter continues to sit on Ohio's death row after the Ohio Supreme Court struck down his appeals.
In an decision released today, the high court voted 4-3 to uphold the convictions and death sentence of Stephen Vrabel for the 1989 murders of Susan Clemente and their daughter Lisa Clemente.
According to court documents, Vrabel killed the two, stuffed them in his refrigerator and freezer and continue his life for several weeks before the bodies were found.
Originally he was found unfit to stand trial, but after years in mental hospitals he was deemed "sufficiently recovered" to stand trial in 1994, according to court papers.
Attorney's argument
Youngstown attorney John B. Juhasz, representing Vrabel, argued before the high court that the conviction and sentence should be overturned because of his client's mental capacity.
During oral arguments, Juhasz said his client's refusal to cooperate with his attorneys in the original trial showed he was paranoid and delusional.
"He believed his lawyers were part of a larger conspiracy," Juhasz said before the Supreme Court earlier this year.
Four of the justices disagreed with that argument including Justice Alice Robie Resnick, who wrote the majority opinion. She said Vrabel's erratic behavior and poor decision-making did not override the repeated findings of psychiatric experts who found him competent to stand trial.
"Given the fact that at least six mental health professionals examined appellant, and all of them found him competent to stand trial, the trial court acted properly in relying on these evaluations," wrote Justice Resnick.
She said the majority of the court also considered that it was a multiple murder, Vrabel's brief mitigation statement to the court and that evidence that would tend to weigh in Vrabel's favor, including a history of mental illness and a lack of significant prior criminal record, were heard at the 1994 trial.
"The aggravating circumstances of appellant's crimes far outweigh and exceed those factors," she wrote. "Not only was [Vrabel] deliberate in causing the death of Susan Clemente, but he also rationalized the murder of their three-and-one-half year old daughter, asserting that she would be better off dead‚ since appellant had killed her mother and he would be going to jail."
In agreement
Justices Francis E. Sweeney, Maureen O'Connor and Judge Colleen Conway Cooney, who sat in the case for former Justice Deborah Cook, agreed with Justice Resnick.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer and Justices Paul Pfeifer and Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, agreed with the majority's decision on the conviction, but disagreed with the sentence and suggested commuting the death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Justice Moyer wrote that "I cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Vrabel's mental illness did not causally contribute to his tragic criminal conduct, thereby reducing his moral culpability to a level inconsistent with the imposition of the ultimate penalty of death."