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Home John Spirko Attorney general requests 6th reprieve for condemned inmate Attorney general requests 6th reprieve for condemned inmate
Tuesday, 06 March 2007
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. Ted Strickland on Monday was weighing a request for a sixth reprieve for a death row inmate to allow more time for DNA testing in a 25-year-old murder.
At the request of John Spirko's attorneys, Attorney General Marc Dann on Friday asked Strickland to delay Spirko's scheduled execution for four months.
Spirko, scheduled to die April 17, would have his execution date pushed to August should Strickland grant the request.
That means almost two years would have passed since Spirko received his first reprieve from Gov. Bob Taft in September 2005.
"In our effort towards developing all useful information for Spirko, as well as for the Gov.'s clemency decision, we continue to accommodate Spirko's ongoing requests for foresnic testing," Heather Gosselin, head of Dann's death penalty division, said in a letter to Strickland's chief legal counsel.
Spirko, who says he is innocent, was sentenced to die for the 1982 murder of northwest Ohio postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger
Spirko, 60, was convicted based on witness statements and his own comments to investigators.
No physical evidence ties him to the killing and charges against a co-defendant who linked him to the murder have been dropped.
Courts at all levels have previously upheld his conviction and death sentence.