KOLISER CASE Next decision: life or death?

Former cellmates of the man who killed a police officer could be witnesses.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The fight for Martin L. Koliser Jr.'s life was to begin today.
A Mahoning County Common Pleas Court jury convicted the 30-year-old Boardman man last week of killing Youngstown Patrolman Michael Hartzell and trying to kill South Side resident Donell Rowe in separate shootings earlier this year.
Rowe was shot during a run-in with Koliser outside the Casaloma Gardens bar on Mahoning Avenue. Hartzell, who was investigating Rowe's shooting, was shot as he sat in his police car.
He'd gotten behind Koliser's car because it fit the description of the car witnesses said Rowe's shooter was driving. Koliser stopped at a traffic light on West Federal Street at Vindicator Square, got out of his car and shot Hartzell, who was stopped behind him.
The same jurors now will determine whether Koliser should be punished by execution or by going to prison, possibly for the rest of his life.
Witnesses
Defense attorneys William J. Mooney and Jerry McHenry have submitted to the court a list of people they intend to call as witnesses in their fight to keep Koliser from being executed.
Koliser also could opt against having his lawyers call any witnesses on his behalf.
Koliser's mother and a cousin, both from Youngstown, and a sister who attends medical school in Mexico, are among the potential witnesses submitted by the defense, said assistant prosecutor Jay Macejko.
Also on the list are a Columbus psychiatrist who evaluated Koliser at the defense attorneys' request, the supervisor of a group home where Koliser spent his adolescent years, and three prison inmates who knew Koliser when they were locked up together.
Koliser served a six-year sentence for a felonious assault charge from Columbiana County. Authorities there said he stabbed his roommate in Salem. He was paroled in December 2002.
In 1992, Koliser was sentenced to six months in prison for escape, but was released after serving only one month. That charge was because he broke away from the bailiff in Girard Municipal Court after being arraigned on drug and weapon charges.
Letters
The prospect of going back to prison is apparently what drove Koliser to get out of his car, walk back to Hartzell's police car and shoot the officer three times.
During last week's trial, prosecutors introduced letters Koliser had written to relatives while he was hiding from authorities after the shootings.
In a long letter to his sister, Koliser wrote that when he saw Hartzell's police car behind his own car just before 2:20 a.m. April 29, he believed Hartzell was going to pull him over and arrest him for shooting Rowe two hours earlier.
"No way in hell am I going to allow them to lock me back up. I'm better than that," he wrote. "No corrections officer is going to tell me to mop any floors ... I'm not going back."
Koliser describes himself in other letters as a person who hates people, society and the law.
"I hate. That's the bottom line," Koliser wrote in a brief letter to his mother. "I hate everyone. I don't care if I die. I hate life! But I have the utmost respect for you."
Remorse
In the letter to his sister, Koliser expressed remorse at breaking his mother's heart, then gave detailed accounts of how he shot Rowe and Hartzell.
Koliser wrote the letter while in Florida, where he fled to escape authorities after the shootings. He was caught there the next day after police surrounded his room at a motel in Pinellas County, Fla.
Koliser wrote in the letter that he intended to return to Youngstown and tend to "unfinished business."
"There will be more bloodshed," he wrote. "But not the family."
bjackson@vindy.com