Push to execute compromises clemency plea

Under those procedures, a hearing is set for Tuesday for John Spirko, who is awaiting execution for the 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger.

The board must make its decision within five business days, forwarding its recommendations to Gov. Bob Taft.

That doesn't leave the governor much time to review the record and decide whether Mr. Spirko's life should be spared. He is scheduled to be executed Sept. 20.

One thing, though, already is certain: The clemency procedures won't be followed in this case. The parole board won't be able to consider "all available relevant evidence" relating to the Spirko case. It's simply impossible ? unless the execution and clemency process are delayed.

That's because, as the parole board convenes, a federal court in Toledo will still be considering charges that prosecutors wrongfully withheld evidence that calls into question Mr. Spirko's guilt.

The parole board won't have the benefit of the federal court's decision ? or evidence from potentially more hearings ? because the court has said it won't be able to rule until September.

This is a dangerous breakdown in the process, undercutting safeguards Ohio has adopted to prevent anyone from ever being wrongly executed. And it's happening in part because Attorney General Jim Petro has refused to recommend a delay of the execution while the federal court completes its review.

The details of the case are spelled out in the clemency application filed on Mr. Spirko's behalf and the state's response. (Download copies at www. daytondailynews.com/opinion.)

John Spirko is an unsympathetic figure who misled investigators with fantastic leads and bizarre lies. Convicted of murdering another woman in 1969, he has spent almost all of his adult life in prison.

But the Mottinger case has no forensic or other physical evidence linking Mr. Spirko to the crime. The eyewitness who put Mr. Spirko at the scene was only "70 percent sure."

William Sessions, a former federal judge and FBI director during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to further review the case. He has been active in an initiative by Georgetown University to promote procedural safeguards in death penalty cases, and was joined by two retired federal judges and a former federal prosecutor in arguing that the Spirko conviction and death sentence are questionable and that "a man's life should not dangle by so thin a thread when there exists an opportunity for further inquiry."

And that plea was made before new evidence of possible prosecutorial misconduct was uncovered this Spring ? evidence now being weighed by the federal court in Toledo.

The parole board is powerless to delay the clemency hearing. Mr. Spirko's lawyers petitioned the Ohio Supreme Court to postpone the execution, but the Court hasn't ruled.

Now, Gov. Taft is being asked to grant a reprieve while the federal court sorts out the claims. He should do so in the interest of justice, to prevent a potential miscarriage, and to preserve the integrity of the clemency process.

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