Convicted twice, Girts may be retried again

By Denise Dick

Poland native was released in 2008

Staff report

CINCINNATI

Photo

Robert Girts

A federal appeals court says that a former undertaker twice convicted of killing his wife may be retried.

Poland native Robert Girts, 56, who worked at a funeral home in Parma, was convicted in 1993 of aggravated murder in the 1992 death of his third wife, Diane, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Prosecutors said he gave her a fatal dose of potassium cyanide.

That conviction was reversed by a state appeals court in 1994, and Girts was convicted in 1995 in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals later found prosecutorial misconduct in Girts’ second trial and reversed the conviction.

The court in 2007 ordered Girts’ release unless the state court granted him a new trial within 180 days of the decision.

Girts wasn’t retried within six months, and in November 2008, he was released from prison pending retrial.

At that time, he was staying at a relative’s Poland home.

Girts argued on appeal that a third trial should be barred. The federal appeals-court opinion released this week affirmed a lower-court decision not to bar it.

“While we express no opinion as to his guilt or innocence, it is appalling that Girts has spent 15 years in prison on the basis of two constitutionally deficient convictions,” the opinion said. “It is also unfortunate that the state of Ohio did not act with all deliberate speed to retry him.”