Execution delay requested

Noting that DNA testing of evidence is still not complete, Attorney General Jim Petro's office has asked for another delay in the execution of death-row inmate John Spirko, which is scheduled for Nov. 29. If granted by Gov. Bob Taft, the proposed 120-day reprieve - the fifth approved since last year - would put Spirko's fate into the hands of the next attorney general and the next governor. Spirko was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1982 kidnapping and murder of Elgin postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger, a crime he insists he didn't commit. Questions have been raised about the quality of the evidence and the integrity of the investigation that put him on death row.

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