Petition drive started to oppose clemency for murderer Jason Getsy

WARREN — Miriam Fife, victim-witness advocate for Trumbull County, has started a petition drive to let Gov. Ted Strickland know how many people oppose clemency for Jason Getsy, the former Hubbard man scheduled to die by lethal injection Aug. 18.

The state parole board last week recommended that Getsy, 33, who killed 66-year-old Ann Serafino and wounded her son, Charles Serafino, in their Hubbard Township home July 7, 1995, be spared the death penalty.

The decision rests with Gov. Strickland to either commute his sentence to life in prison without parole or to go forward with the death penalty. There is no specific deadline for Strickland to make his decision other than the execution date, Fife said.

Fife said she fears that the reason the parole board gave for recommending clemency for Getsy — the fact that the man who ordered the killing, co-defendant John Santine, did not get the death penalty — does not spread to clemency for other defendants.

Taken to an extreme, the concept could even lead to clemency for Danny Lee Hill, the man who killed Fife’s own son, Raymond, in 1985, she said, since a co-defendant in that case, Raymond Combs, did not receive the death penalty. Combs was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a 17 years old at the time.

Fife hopes to have as many signatures on petitions, emails and letters as possible sent to the governor’s assistant, Jose Torres, by Monday, the day Torres is scheduled to make his recommendation to the governor.

Additional emails, petitions and letters after Monday are still warranted, Fife noted.

Fife, whose office is in the Trumbull County Courthouse, asks that anyone wishing to sign a petition to call her at (330) 675-2552 to arrange to sign one of her petitions, to sign a petition at the Hubbard Township Police Department or Hubbard City Police Department, email Torres at jose.torres@governor.oh.gov., or send him a letter through the U.S. Mail at the address Jose Torres, Riffe Center, 30th Floor, 77 South High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215-6108.