Inmates' long wait may soon be over

Both men have insisted from the outset that they had nothing to do with the 1988 murder of a Randolph Township woman.

But it was visiting Common Pleas Judge Charles J. Bannon who on June 14, 2002, uttered the first official pronouncement that something had gone haywire with the justice system in Ravenna.

Bannon, who was appointed to the post-conviction proceedings by Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, ruled that both Resh and Gondor were denied effective counsel because their trial lawyers never used many pieces of evidence that could have scuttled the state's case against them.

Yet in the years that have ticked away since -- as well as the 12 that preceded Bannon's ruling -- family members say they cannot understand how the men have kept their strength.

When they were led off to prison in 1990, both were in their mid-20s.

``I just don't know how they've kept so positive after all these years, after they've been knocked down so many times,'' said Mike Resh, Randy Resh's 45-year-old brother.

``I guess it's like I've said before. It's a 15-round fight. You get knocked down, you get back up. You get knocked down, you get back up again. I know for sure they haven't quit yet,'' Mike Resh said, ``so eventually you have to think they'll win.''

Resh and Gondor, friends since their childhood days in Mantua, were tried separately and convicted of participating in the 1988 kidnapping, attempted rape and murder of Connie Nardi, 31, of Randolph Township.

Troy Busta of Hiram, the first man charged in the case, agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge to avoid the death penalty.

As a result of that deal, Busta provided the prosecution testimony that implicated -- and ultimately convicted -- Resh and Gondor.

Testimony questioned

Bannon, in fact, based much of his new-trial order on the possibility that Resh and Gondor were set up with testimony concocted by Busta.

The high court agreed to hear the case in May 2005 after a three-judge panel of the 11th District Court of Appeals -- in a split decision that was nearly three years in the making -- blocked Bannon's new-trial order.

And like so many other bizarre occurrences in the case, an unwritten Supreme Court custom is expected to result in the decision being released this week.

Because of the impending retirement of Justice Alice Robie Resnick, the court will release decisions by the end of the year for all cases in which Resnick was involved, Supreme Court public information director Chris Davey said.

Resnick was one of seven justices who heard oral arguments in the Resh-Gondor case on Jan. 25 in Columbus.

There was no formal announcement of the Resnick-related development by court officials. It is simply a Supreme Court practice that has been in effect for years, Davey said.

According to Davey, he is prohibited from commenting on other details of the decision, except that it is ``nearly complete and is being finalized for release.''

Holding out hope

Mike Resh, who attended the oral arguments with about 25 family members and friends of Gondor and Resh, said he was optimistic that the Supreme Court justices ``will make the right decision this time.''

It has reached this point because Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci, who was not involved in the original trials, appealed Bannon's 2002 decision and won in the Warren appellate court on Dec. 30, 2004.

Bannon made his decision after hearing eight days of testimony and evidence, summing up his 11-page opinion by declaring the original verdicts were ``not worthy of confidence'' and should no longer stand.

But in the 11th District appellate ruling, a 2-to-1 decision, the basis for the opinion by Judge Cynthia Westcott Rice was that the original juries believed the testimony of Busta, and that his testimony took precedence over all else.

Now 12 months have passed since the lawyers for Resh and Gondor had their say before the Supreme Court.

Columbus lawyer James D. Owen -- not once interrupted by a question from the bench-- said ``justice was robbed'' in the trials of the two men because their juries were ``never armed with the truth.''

Possible evidence

One by one, Owen laid out four key pieces of evidence never heard by the Resh and Gondor juries -- evidence that Bannon pointed to in his order.

The first was an alibi that prosecutors maintained was concocted.

According to the state's original case, Resh and Gondor went to a pizza shop on the Tuesday after the murder -- before they knew they were police suspects. They went there to ask whether workers remembered they had ordered a pizza on Sunday night -- only hours after the murder.

But work records of the two pizza shop workers who talked to Resh and Gondor showed the only day they worked together was the next Friday -- after the men knew they were suspects.

``It's what any reasonable person would have done,'' the lawyer told the court.

Owen's second point was a 50-page, tape-recorded interview of Busta by his two defense lawyers and their private investigator conducted three days after Busta's mother was caught trying to smuggle a knife to him in the county jail. Owen called it a ``stirring piece of evidence'' because it showed Busta was willing to say or do anything to avoid the death penalty and save his mother from prosecution.

The lawyer called it ``a deal with the devil.''

His third point was an alleged blood stain found by a state investigator in the bed liner of Gondor's truck, which prosecutors said was used to dispose of the victim's body. But in the evidence presented before Bannon, Owen said, the stain proved to be nothing more than a drop of perspiration.

Owen's final point was the testimony of a woman who lived near where the body was found. She testified that she saw other people who were there with Busta on two occasions only hours apart -- but they were not Resh and Gondor.

Bannon used all four points of evidence in his ruling, summing up his opinion by concluding that ``had such evidence been disclosed to the juries that decided these cases, there is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceedings would have been different.''

Vigluicci, the Portage prosecutor, said he could not speculate on the impending high court decision because he had not seen it. His only comment was that his office ``will continue to defend the convictions.''

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Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or "This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it!" .

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