Ohio Supreme Court ruling goes against Danny Hill regarding bite mark evidence

Staff report

WARREN

The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review a judge’s decision that said killer Danny L. Hill, 52, cannot have a new trial on the basis of bite-mark evidence that his attorneys say is no longer considered reliable.

Hill and Timothy Combs brutally murdered Raymond Fife, 12, in a field off of Palmyra Road in September 1985. The boy was on his way to a Boy Scouts meeting. Hill was convicted of aggravated murder, kidnapping, rape, aggravated arson and felonious sexual penetration.

The decision that will not be reviewed by the high court was made by Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said the rulings, which resulted from a 2015 filing by Hill’s attorney, “recognize the need for finality of judgment, especially in these cases where guilt was established fairly by state court judges or juries.”

Meanwhile, Hill still has a pending case in the federal courts that pertains to his request to be ruled ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability.

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court put the death penalty back on the table for Hill after a federal appeals court ruled the opposite way almost a year earlier.

Watkins said the Ohio Attorney General’s Office on Tuesday filed a 55-page brief in the lower federal court. An oral hearing is expected this fall in Cincinnati.