Ohio court weighs ex-death row inmate's claim

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Dale Johnston was sent to death row in 1984 for a double homicide he didn't commit. He's spent the years since his 1990 release trying to get back the life he lost.

The Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments today in Johnston's latest attempt to win a wrongful imprisonment suit against the state.

Now 81, Johnston described his years under a death sentence as "hell on earth."

"Death row's the most horrible place anybody could be," he said in a recent interview at his home in Grove City in suburban Columbus. "Especially when you know they're wanting to kill you for something you didn't do."

The case dates to 1982, after parts of the dismembered bodies of his stepdaughter, Annette Cooper Johnston, and her boyfriend, Todd Schultz, were discovered in a cornfield a few days after they went missing.

Johnston was indicted the following year and in 1984, a Hocking County jury, based in part on testimony by a hypnotized witness, convicted Johnston of the killings and sentenced him to death on the theory he'd been having an affair with his stepdaughter and killed both in a jealous rage. An appeals court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial, but a judge refused to allow the hypnotized witness' testimony and other evidence and the case was dismissed.

In 2008, two men confessed to the crime, with one saying he killed the couple and the other that he helped dispose of the bodies.