Ohio jury won’t hear killer’s guilty-plea offer

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Jurors who convicted a serial killer and will decide whether to recommend the death penalty won’t hear about his pretrial offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence, a judge ruled Friday.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose said the newly disclosed plea offer wasn’t relevant to whether Anthony Sowell, 51, should face the death sentence for killing 11 women.

Sowell’s sentencing phase convenes Monday with the same jury that convicted him July 22.

The motion filed Thursday by the defense said it would be to Sowell’s benefit to inform jurors at the sentencing phase that he “was willing to plead guilty and waive all appeals but the offer was rejected by the state.”

According to defense attorneys John Parker and Rufus Sims, “One or more jurors may fairly wonder why this case went to trial when 11 bodies were found in the defendant’s home and backyard.”

At the time of the offer, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason stopped short of confirming it but said Sowell’s case was the most appropriate for the death penalty that he had seen in 12 years as prosecutor.

In their response filed with the court Friday, trial prosecutors opposed telling jurors about the plea offer and said the only reason the defense wanted to highlight the plea offer was to prevent jurors “from speculating about why a case with overwhelming evidence went to trial.”

The judge’s instructions to jurors that the defendant had the right to a trial is sufficient to prevent such speculation, the prosecution said.

Mason’s spokesman, Ryan Miday, and Sims declined to comment Friday. Both sides are under a gag order limiting comments outside court.

The judge ruled earlier in the week that the jury may recommend death or life without chance of parole, but ruled out any sentence recommendation that includes a chance for parole.

The sentencing phase could last a week or more.

Sowell, who served 15 years in prison for a 1989 attempted rape, was convicted of killing the women and dumping their remains, including a skull, in his home or burying them in his backyard.

He also was convicted of sexually assaulting three women who survived and testified against him.

The women began disappearing in 2007, and prosecutors say Sowell lured them to his home with the promise of alcohol or drugs. Police discovered the bodies in late 2009 after officers went to investigate a woman’s report that she had been raped there.

Most of the victims were nude from the waist down, strangled with household objects and had traces of cocaine or depressants in their systems.