Murder victim’s son to be a judge

He wouldn’t answer a question about his views on the death penalty.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Brendan Sheehan was just 15 when he sat in the back of a courtroom and watched a jury convict his father’s Hitler-loving killer of murder.

Sheehan, now 41, knew then that he was headed for a career in law. On Monday, he will leave his job as an assistant prosecutor and head to work as a trial judge in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

“I remember how I was treated; I remember how it felt,” Sheehan said in an interview in his final days as a prosecutor, recalling the courtroom years ago.

“It just kind of inspired me,” he said. “That kind of led me down this road.”

Sheehan, a Democrat, ran unopposed and was elected in November.

The crime was committed on his 15th birthday, and the trial was over before he turned 16.

Neo-Nazi Frank Spisak robbed 50-year-old Timothy Sheehan and shot him four times in a men’s bathroom at Cleveland State University in 1982. The elder Sheehan had worked at the school as a physical plant superintendent.

Spisak, who now sits on death row, was later convicted of committing three campus murders over a seven-month period.

The trial turned into a spectacle. Spisak carried a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and told the courtroom he was God’s agent in a war against blacks and Jews. When he was sentenced to die, Spisak offered the Nazi “Heil Hitler” salute.

Now 57, Spisak is being held in the Mansfield state prison. He has appealed his death sentence, claiming he was represented poorly by an attorney who described Spisak at trial as “demented” and “undeserving of sympathy.”

A photograph on the prison Web site shows Spisak stockier than he was at the time of the trial; the narrow, Hitler-style mustache is gone.

Spisak, who wants surgery to become a woman and has called himself Frances Anne, attributed his crimes to a mental illness related to a sexual identity crisis. The courts identify him in rulings as Frank Spisak but, at his request, have made subsequent references to “she” and “her.”

Spisak was once arrested for prostitution dressed as a woman.

Each new legal development in Spisak’s 25-year odyssey through the courts takes a toll on Sheehan’s family.

“Mom’s first response is, ‘Does that mean he can get out?’,” Brendan Sheehan said. “It just breaks my heart.”

Sheehan, who has prosecuted killers and serial pedophiles, sidestepped a question about his views on the death penalty, saying it was up to a judge to follow the law. But he took issue with the suggestion that ex-prosecutors might be seen as tough, insensitive judges.

The issue before a judge, he said, is the truth — working within the law to find out what happened. Sheehan said his goal as a prosecutor has been fairness, not a blind commitment to winning a conviction.

Sheehan, whose boyish face draws comments that he couldn’t be old enough to be a judge, is described by colleagues and defense attorneys as fair and hard-driving.

His prosecutor’s office — a converted closet — is lined almost to the ceiling with boxed files of high-profile cases he has handled and photos of his wife, an attorney in private practice, and children ages 5, 8 and 10.

Stephen McGowan, who has known Sheehan for years, said Sheehan’s fairness gave fellow defense attorneys confidence that they had seen all prosecution evidence before trial, a recurring issue in Cleveland.

“If everybody was like Brendan Sheehan, it wouldn’t be such a big issue,” McGowan said.

Sheehan has been willing to reduce charges if the circumstances warrant, an important tactic to make sure criminal charges fit the crime, McGowan said.

Sheehan’s boss, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, said Sheehan’s thoroughness helped him solve a murder by realizing the victim had earlier been robbed elsewhere. The robber eventually was tied to the slaying.

U.S. District Donald C. Nugent, who prosecuted Spisak and later mentored Sheehan and gave him a courthouse job, said the death of his father sensitized Sheehan without making him biased against the defense.

“He’s probably more sensitive to all aspects of the justice system by being related to the victim of a crime,” Nugent said. “He sees what causes people to go into a life of crime and he’s sensitive to that, as he is to the victims.”