Execution of murderer Danny Lee Hill overdue

Last week was a good one for Ohioans who believe that as long as the state has a death penalty – and as long as there are criminals willing and able to commit heinous crimes – the law should be enforced.

On a local level, attorneys pursuing a meritless appeal designed only to delay justice in the Danny Lee Hill case were handed a well-deserved defeat.

On the statewide level, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has located supplies of the drugs needed to resume execution by lethal injection.

There is no good reason why Hill was not executed years ago for the murder of 12-year-old Raymond Fife. The 1985 torture, sexual assault and murder of Raymond was one of the most brutal crimes in Warren history.

On Sept. 10, 1985, Hill, then 18, and Timothy Combs, then 17, pounced on Raymond as he rode his bicycle through the woods behind a supermarket off Palmyra Road. Over the period of an hour, Raymond was beaten and kicked, his pleas for mercy were ignored, he was sexually assaulted multiple times, he was choked and brutalized with a stick. Hill was left alone with him while Combs went to the store for lighter fluid that was used to set the boy afire. Witnesses reported hearing cries of pain coming from the woods during that time.

Raymond was left for dead, but he was still breathing when his father, Isaac, found him. He died two days later of injuries so varied and severe that Trumbull County Coroner Dr. Joseph Sudimack Jr. could not pinpoint a single injury as the cause of death. He ruled the death a homicide caused by cardiorespiratory arrest, secondary to asphyxiation, subdural hematoma and multiple trauma.

At the time, it appeared justice was on track. Hill was found guilty of aggravated murder with four death specifications on Jan. 31, 1986, by a three-judge panel – David F. McLain, Robert A. Nader and Mitchell F. Shaker. He was sentenced to death and an execution date of Feb. 28, 1987, was set.

Still alive

And yet, three decades later Hill is still alive, and lawyers who are opposed to the death penalty regardless of the laws of the state, the strength of the evidence or the egregiousness of the crime continue to pursue new and old legal theories to thwart the judicial system.

Which brings us to last week’s victory for Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who argued that a motion filed by lawyers on Hill’s behalf seeking a new trial was without merit.

Hill’s lawyers seized on changes in how the science of bite-mark technology has changed over the past 30 years. They argued that Hill should be given a new trial because an expert testified during his trial that bite marks on Raymond’s penis were likely made by Hill. The lawyers also attempted to claim that Hill’s confession should be suppressed and that Hill should not be subject to the death penalty because, they claim, he is mentally retarded.

Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove bought none of it, but she took none of the claims lightly. She issued a 34-page opinion giving a detailed explanation of why she was rejecting the request for a new trial. To arrive at that opinion, she not only read the voluminous briefs submitted in the case, but she reviewed the entire 1,275-page transcript of the trial.

She properly rejected attempts to relitigate the confession and mental retardation issues. She then built an unimpeachable argument for why the evidence presented at the trial so strongly supported a guilty verdict that the existence or nonexistence of the bite-mark evidence would not have changed the judges’ verdicts.

Any other outcome would have been a travesty of justice that would have required Raymond’s family, including his mother, Miriam, to relive a trial that established Hill’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in 1986.

That said, it will still be years before Hill can be executed. The lawyers in this case may appeal. And other lawyers are pursuing a federal appeal on the retardation issue – the same issue that was argued unsuccessfully to the Ohio Supreme Court a decade ago.

Even so, Judge Cosgrove’s ruling must be celebrated for its depth and its clarity.

Meanwhile, the state hopes to get U.S. District Court Chief Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. of Columbus to approve a new protocol that will allow the use of a combination of three drugs in carrying out executions.