Ruling may exempt Danny Lee Hill from death penalty

CINCINNATI — A three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that could result in Danny Lee Hill getting something other than the death penalty in the brutal 1985 murder 12-year-old Raymond Fife.

The panel on Friday reversed the decision of a Judge John Adams, a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court judge, who affirmed Hill's death sentence.

Friday's ruling said earlier rulings by courts in Ohio were wrong when they ruled that Hill was not too intellectually disabled to be executed.

Dennis Watkins, Trumbull County prosecutor, said he will request that the Ohio Attorney General's Office appeal Friday's decision to a full panel of the judges of the Sixth Circuit.