Prosecutors, family: Execute killer

CLEVELAND (AP) — Prosecutors and relatives of a woman murdered in a 1995 by a hired killer are pressing Gov. Ted Strickland in petitions and letters to reject a rare recommendation to spare the convict from execution.

But the defense for Jason Getsy, 33, scheduled to be executed Aug. 18, says the mastermind of the killing escaped the death penalty, so the triggerman shouldn’t be executed.

Law-enforcement leaders led by Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, Getsy’s trial prosecutor, fear a grant of clemency could damage a prosecutor’s ability to strike a plea bargain with lesser-involved criminals in return for testimony against a triggerman.

Getsy was sentenced to die for the murder of an unintended victim, 68-year-old Ann Serafino, of Hubbard, a Youngstown suburb. He also was convicted of the attempted murder of Serafino’s son, Charles, the scheme’s target.

The Ohio Parole Board singled out the life sentence for John Santine, 48, who orchestrated the crime, saying Santine appeared to be just as guilty as Getsy. Santine is serving a sentence of 35 years to life.

Ann Serafino’s only daughter, Nancy Serafino, doesn’t buy that legal argument.

“If this sentence is commuted, as far as I am concerned, the state of Ohio will give every criminal in Ohio a way to get away with murder,” she wrote to Strickland.

Plea bargains and differing roles among accomplices make varying sentences a part of the process, she said. “Figure out a way to fix the holes in the system. Don’t take it out on my mother as if her life didn’t matter,” she wrote.

The governor’s office didn’t indicate when a clemency ruling would be announced. In an e-mail to The Associated Press, spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said Strickland “will take the time he needs to thoroughly review the case before making a decision.”

Supporters of the Serafino family mounted a petition drive, collecting signatures at the courthouse in Warren and police stations in the area, asking Strickland to deny clemency.

“His guilt is not in question. The last words Ann heard were ‘die bitch,’ spoken by Jason Getsy. Mercy is not warranted in this case,” the petitions said.

The petition drive was announced Monday, and the first batch of more than 1,000 signatures went to Strickland’s office Friday. Petitions will be forwarded to the governor on a continuing basis, according to an organizer, Miriam Fife, who works in the prosecutor’s office as an advocate for victims and their families.

It also has generated letters and e-mails sent separately to Strickland by clemency opponents, she said.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien in Columbus said ruling out the death penalty for Getsy because the mastermind got prison time was a dangerous theory that would “dismantle capital litigation in Ohio when more than one person was involved in the homicide.”

He compared giving clemency to Getsy based on his codefendant’s prison sentence to sparing the life of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh because other conspirators escaped the death penalty.

But Getsy’s defense, led by Mike Benza, believes the circumstances should allow for mercy. “This [crime] all happened because that was what John Santine wanted to have happen. There is just something wrong about it to have Jason Getsy as the only one on death row,” Benza said.

“If we are going to hold the death penalty for those who are the worst of the worst, in this particular case the worst person is John Santine,” he said.

A death penalty opponent, retired Dr. Carl Hyde of Yellow Springs near Dayton, said he wrote to Strickland endorsing clemency for Getsy based on his Quaker faith. Getsy’s sentence should conform to Santine’s, according to Hyde, who regularly takes part in execution vigils outside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.