Man’s execution pushed back again

The governor will not
review the file again until all testing is completed.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The scenario has become almost routine for condemned killer John Spirko.

An Ohio governor issues a reprieve, three or four months pass while DNA tests are conducted on crime evidence, the attorney general asks for additional time for testing, and another reprieve is issued.

Spirko, 61, was sentenced to death row in 1982 for the slaying of a northwest Ohio postmistress and has been on Ohio’s death row almost half his life.

He holds the record for the number of times an inmate has been spared an execution date under the state’s new death penalty law, which took effect in 1981.

Gov. Ted Strickland granted Spirko’s seventh reprieve late last month so his lawyers and the state can further study evidence in the death of Betty Jane Mottinger. Mottinger was abducted and repeatedly stabbed, then wrapped in a tarp and dumped in a field where her body was found three weeks after her death.

Record holder

The July reprieve was the second for Spirko from Strickland, a Democrat. Former Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, had delayed his execution five times.

In recent decades, no one else comes close to Spirko in number of delays. Taft did not issue reprieves for any other death row inmates. Strickland delayed three inmates’ executions earlier this year to review their files. Two have since been executed.

Spirko’s case is unusual, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national data clearinghouse that opposes capital punishment.

He said there are no similar examples nationally since the modern death-penalty era began in 1976 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled capital punishment constitutional after a four-year gap.

Spirko is handling the repeat delays well, partly because they haven’t come close to his scheduled execution dates, said Alvin Dunn, one of his Washington, D.C.-based attorneys.

Delays in the past

Since Ohio’s statehood in 1803, other inmates also won multiple delays under old death penalty laws.

Lawson Schaber, sentenced for killing taxi driver Velma Byers, received reprieves from both Gov. Michael DiSalle, a Democrat, and Gov. Jim Rhodes, a Republican, before a federal appeals court overturned his death sentence in 1965. Schaber had at least 13 total reprieves, including court delays.

In the 19th century, Gov. J.E. Campbell issued four reprieves for Isaac Smith of Pike County while lawyers tried to introduce new evidence questioning Smith’s guilt. He was originally sentenced to hang Aug. 23, 1889, for the murder of Stephen Skidmore. Finally, on April 29, 1891, two days before Smith’s latest scheduled execution, Campbell announced he was commuting Smith’s sentence.

“I am therefore constrained to commute his sentence to imprisonment for life, and let time do its work in disclosing the truth,” Campbell announced. Smith took the news calmly, observing that he still hoped for a full pardon.

Spirko, who has declined to be interviewed, knows there’s a balance between wanting a ruling in his favor and giving the attorney general’s office the time it needs to test evidence, Dunn said.

“He would look forward to a resolution as long as it’s in his favor,” he said.

Evidence

Spirko was convicted based on witness statements and his own comments to investigators.

No physical evidence ties him to the killing and charges against a co-defendant who linked him to the murder have been dropped.

Courts at all levels have previously upheld Spirko’s conviction and death sentence.

The DNA testing at the center of the reprieves involves biological testing of material from the post office where Mottinger was abducted and from the field where her body was found, including blood on duct tape used to wrap her and hair samples.

In addition, Spirko’s lawyers and the state are trying to find individuals who could be alternate suspects to collect blood samples for DNA testing.

Attorney General Marc Dann is cooperating with the testing but also says Spirko’s file is complete.

“The file as it stands right now is sufficient to make a determination whether clemency should be or should not be granted,” said Brian LaLiberte, Dann’s deputy first assistant general.

Strickland is waiting for the testing to be finished before reviewing the file, said his spokesman, Keith Dailey.