Court issues 2nd denial in quest to relieve death sentence
WARREN -- The 11th District Court of Appeals has denied, for a second time, the request of convicted killer Nathaniel Jackson of Youngstown for postconviction relief of his death sentence in the killing of Robert S. Fingerhut of Howland.
The court ruled in March and again this week that Jackson failed to demonstrate any reversible error in the proceedings in the Trumbull County Common Pleas courtroom of Judge John M. Stuard, when the judge denied Jackson's petition for post conviction relief on the conviction and death sentence.
LuWayne Annos, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said in 10 years of handling appeals court cases, this is the first time the appeals court has reconsidered such an appeal. She said the second opinion was 17 paragraphs longer but contained no significant differences.
The Ohio Supreme Court also upheld Jackson's conviction and death sentence earlier this year.
Court documents say Jackson and Fingerhut's ex-wife, Donna Roberts, began an affair during Jackson's incarceration in the Lorain Correctional Institution, and Jackson shot and killed Fingerhut in the home Fingerhut still shared with Roberts in 2001.
Roberts is one of two women on Ohio's death row.