Supreme Court may review Danny Lee Hill decision

Staff report

WARREN

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to “re-list” a petition by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, asking that the top court hear an appeal of the decision to remove Warren killer Danny Lee Hill from death row.

It means the case will be distributed to Supreme Court justices in Washington, D.C., for a second conference Friday, according to a news release from the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s office.

“The United States Supreme Court accepts roughly 1 percent of cases annually,” Trumbull prosecutors noted. “In fact, today, the court denied certiorari [yes to hearing an appeal] in approximately 215 cases. The mere fact that the court has re-listed this petition indicates the Supreme Court of the United States is strongly considering hearing and reviewing the case on its merits,” prosecutors said.

“This office remains optimistic that the court will review the case and ultimately affirm Hill’s conviction and death sentence.”

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled in February that Hill should be re-sentenced to something other than the death penalty in the brutal 1985 murder-rape-torture of Raymond Fife, 12, in a wooded area off Palmyra Road Southwest in Warren.

The February ruling said earlier rulings by courts in Ohio were wrong when they said Hill was not too intellectually disabled to be executed.

Miriam Fife, Raymond’s mother, who worked for many years as a victim witness advocate for Trumbull County, said she knows that Tuesday’s action is a “good sign,” and added, “It gives us hope.”

A re-list occurs when the justices consider a petition at a private conference but decline to act on it, redistributing it for the following conference, according to the cocklelegalbriefs.com website.