Error removes, returns convict to death row

Staff report

WARREN

An error made by a judge took Nathaniel E. Jackson off of death row for about two years, but that same judge put him back on death row Tuesday.

Judge John M. Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court resentenced Jackson, 40, to the death penalty for conspiring with Donna Roberts in 2001 to kill Roberts’ husband, Robert Fingerhut, in the home Fingerhut and Roberts shared in Howland.

Roberts is also on death row for her role in the killing.

Judge Stuard on Tuesday set Jackson’s tentative execution date for Aug. 15, 2013.

Jackson returned to Trumbull County for the resentencing, which Ohio’s 11th District Court of Appeals ordered Judge Stuard to do in October 2010 as a result of a finding that the first sentencing in 2002 was flawed.

The flaw was a common practice at the Trumbull County Courthouse at the time involving the preparation of the sentencing opinion, a document filed with the court.

The appeals court found that Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, prepared the sentencing opinion in the Jackson case at the direction of Judge Stuard — without Jackson and his attorneys being made aware of it.

Judge Stuard said he made his decision in the Jackson case on his own and discussed nothing of substance with Becker while asking him to prepare the opinion.

In court Tuesday, Jackson told Judge Stuard he had completed several educational courses while in prison and had broken no prison rules for five years.

His attorney, Randall Porter of the Ohio Public Defender’s office, said Jackson asked Judge Stuard to resentence him to something less than death.

Jackson, who returns to death row as a result of the resentencing, will appeal Judge Stuard’s resentencing, Porter said.