Supreme Court to rule on 6th trial in Austintown strangulation murder

YOUNGSTOWN

The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether Christopher Anderson can be tried for a sixth time for a June 3, 2002, Austintown homicide.

Anderson, 48, is charged with the strangulation murder of Amber Zurcher, 22, in her Compass West apartment.

Anderson, who maintains his innocence, has been jailed for more than 13 years awaiting disposition of this case.

The Anderson case was one of only four cases statewide the top court accepted Wednesday for review, as it refused to hear 73 other cases.

Saying the charge and circumstances of the case haven’t changed, Judge Shirley J. Christian of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court refused a defense request in July to reduce Anderson’s $500,000 bond.

“If the state were now to convict Anderson at a sixth trial, no one could honestly look at the conviction and say that it was a fair process,” wrote Anderson’s lawyer, John B. Juhasz, in his appeal to the top court.

“It destroys the integrity of the courts to allow the government chance after chance, as many cracks as it takes to secure a conviction,” Juhasz wrote.

The appeal says the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars the prosecution “from making repeated attempts over a long course of time to convict a person by simply wearing him down when there is no new evidence of guilt.”

The appeal to the top court stems from a unanimous decision against Anderson by a three-judge panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals in May this year.

“While we recognize that, at some point, continued retrial will present too onerous a burden on appellant’s rights, that time has not yet come,” the panel ruled.

Read more about the case in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.