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Valley woman on death row gets hearing
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
The lone woman on Ohio’s death row is hoping to convince the state’s high court to vacate the penalty for her role in a Trumbull County murder more than a decade ago.
The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday set a May 7 hearing in the case of Donna Roberts, who was sentenced to death twice for the 2001 murder of her former husband.
Roberts and her boyfriend at the time, Nathaniel Jackson, planned the murder of 57-year-old Robert Fingerhut for months, according to documents. Roberts provided Jackson with access to the Howland home she and Fingerhut shared, where Jackson shot the victim multiple times.
Both Roberts and Jackson received death penalties and were re-sentenced after it was determined that the prosecutor’s office assisted in writing the original opinion in the case, according to documents.
Among other arguments, Roberts contends the court should have been presented with additional evidence during re-sentencing that she was sexually abused as a child, spent time in a psychiatric ward, suffered severe head injuries from car accidents and received government assistance due to a mental disability, according to documents.