HIGHWAY SHOOTINGS Death penalty rarely used in Franklin Co.

The AP found that 5 percent of capital indictments ended in a death sentence.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Although the suspect in a series of highway shootings faces charges that carry the death penalty, the odds are against his receiving it in Franklin County.
Of 334 capital indictments filed in Franklin County from 1981 through 2002, only 16 -- or 5 percent -- ended with death sentences, according to an Associated Press analysis of county cases.
The majority of the cases, including several that involved multiple slayings, ended in plea agreements. The analysis found 183 such agreements, or 55 percent of the cases that started with a charge that carried the possibility of execution.
Charles A. McCoy Jr., 28, of Columbus, became the latest Franklin County offender involved in a capital case when prosecutors announced Thursday that a grand jury had indicted him in the Nov. 25 death of Gail Knisley while she was running errands with a friend.
He faces the death penalty because Knisley's death came "as part of a course of conduct involving the purposeful killing of or attempt to kill two or more persons." He also faces lesser charges in that and 11 other shootings.
The AP analysis found that in 111 cases, juries or three-judge panels convicted the offenders but did not sentence them to death. In 45 of those cases, juries convicted the offenders of lower charges -- such as murder -- that did not carry the death penalty.
In the remaining cases, the juries convicted the offenders of crimes that carried the death sentence but opted for prison terms instead, according to the analysis of state and county court records and press accounts of the crimes.
In several more cases, defendants were acquitted or ruled incompetent to stand trial.
Of the 16 sentenced to death, two had their sentences reduced to life in prison and a third died in prison. Two others, John Glenn Roe and William Wickline, were executed this year.
'Rarely used'
The data show the death penalty "remains a relatively rarely used sanction," said Doug Berman, an Ohio State University professor who studies capital punishment.
Capital cases are more common at the indictment stage, "but for your average prosecutor it's a mechanism that allows them to enter plea negotiations in a stronger position."
In 1999, Carlo Owens pleaded guilty to killing Patrick Pryor and Loretta Young, a young couple shot in a burglary at their apartment near Ohio State University on Jan. 14, 1998. Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to the plea with the recommendation that Owens receive life in prison.
Owens, now 24, narrowly escaped death when a three-judge panel rejected the agreement and deadlocked 2-1 in favor of death. A unanimous vote was required.
"A life sentence is a life sentence; that satisfied me, at least," said Fred Aukeman, Pryor's grandfather.
"This was a violent act, but he did not seem like a violent person," said Aukeman, 75, a retired biologist who lives in South Vienna.
Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said a change in state law that guaranteed life in prison without parole in capital cases was a factor in accepting Owens' plea.
Every case is different, O'Brien said.
"A lot of it depends on the strength of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses and the nature of the offense and the nature of the offender," he said.
In 1993, a Franklin County jury convicted Wendell Rutledge of the 1991 execution-style shooting of two restaurant employees during a robbery, then deadlocked 10-2 in favor of a death sentence.
Rutledge is serving 55 years to life at Lebanon Correctional Institution.
"It was a relief to me that he didn't get a death penalty," said Mike Faun of Columbus, the father of Stephen Faun, one of the two killed. "I know it'd still be eating at me, when are they going to put him to death. This way, I know where he's at."
Faun, 57, emphasized he strongly supports using the death penalty, if it were carried out faster.