Ohio wins appeal in death-penalty case

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the state of Ohio should have another chance to sentence a convicted killer to death, despite a previous factual finding that the man is mentally retarded.

The court said Monday that a federal appeals court acted too quickly in throwing out the death sentence for Michael Bies, after the Supreme Court barred execution of mentally retarded people in 2002.

The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati was based on an earlier review of Bies’ case by an Ohio court. Though upholding his death sentence, the Ohio Supreme Court found that Bies was mentally retarded and had an IQ of 69.

That determination was made before the high court set new standards in the 2002 ruling. “Mental retardation was not a conclusive or necessary determination in any Ohio court proceeding to date,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.

Bies will now get a chance to argue that he should be spared execution because of mental retardation, and prosecutors may try to rebut his claim and say Bies still is deserving of death for killing a 10-year-old boy who refused to perform a sex act.

Also Monday, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland rejected clemency for a condemned killer who cited a horrific childhood in asking he be spared execution for locking a woman in a car trunk and burning her alive.

Strickland said he weighed evidence from the trial of Daniel Wilson, court rulings and arguments presented for and against Wilson at his April clemency hearing before making his decision.

Wilson, 39, was sentenced to die for the May 4, 1991, slaying of Carol Lutz, a woman he had just met and spent several hours drinking with at a bar. Lutz ended up in the trunk of her black Oldsmobile Cutlass after they left the bar and went to Wilson’s house.

After driving the Cutlass around, Wilson finally parked near a school and let Lutz out briefly after she begged to use the restroom but forced her back in the trunk even though she promised to forget the ordeal if he ran away.

Wilson then set the punctured gas tank on fire and walked off while Lutz burned to death.