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Home News Injustice in Ohio OHIO SUPREME COURT----No-smoking rule didnt affect jurys death-penalty OHIO SUPREME COURT----No-smoking rule didnt affect jurys death-penalty
Saturday, 16 December 2006
OHIO SUPREME COURT----No-smoking rule didnt affect jurys death-penalty verdict
A Licking County judge did not violate a Newark man's right to a fair trial by forbidding jurors to smoke during deliberations in his death-penalty trial three years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled.
"We find that the sentence imposed in this case was appropriate," wrote Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton in the unanimous decision announced today.
Attorneys representing Phillip Elmore, 43, who was convicted and sentence to death for beating and strangling his girlfriend, had claimed among 17 appeal allegations that the jury rushed to judgment to convict andsentence Elmore.
"The judge's refusal to make any accommodation of jurors' request to smoke predisposed those jurors to agree on a quick decision," the attorneys said in Elmore's appeal in August.
"The record indicates that there was only one smoker on this jury," Stratton wrote. "Elmore's claim that this juror suffered nicotine withdrawal is totally speculative ... Nor is there any evidence that this juror rushed the other jurors during their deliberations."
The 6-man, 6-woman jury took 6 hours on Oct. 28, 2003, to convict Elmore of aggravated murder in the June 2002 slaying of Pamela Annarino, 47.
The same jury deliberated three hours a week later to recommend the death penalty.
The Supreme Court did find that Common Pleas Judge Jon Spahr committed a procedural error in sentencing Elmore to maximum and consecutive sentences on 5 other counts: murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated
burglary and grand theft. Spahr must re-sentence him on those convictions.
The judge said he was satisfied by the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the death penalty.
"When the request was made, counsel for both the state and the defense agreed it wasn't appropriate to give a smoke break," Spahr said. "The Supreme Court decision does not surprise me."
Nor did it surprise Joseph Edwards, one of Elmore's appeal attorneys.
"We understand that very few capital cases are reversed in the Ohio Supreme Court," Edwards said. "Smoking was an interesting issue.
"His best chance of getting off death row is through the federal courts."
Edwards was unsure how long the federal process could take, but noted the most important issue raised in the appeal was that Elmore's trial lawyers were ineffective during sentencing by not calling any relatives to testify on his behalf.
"This doesn't mean the fight ends. The fight goes on," Edwards said.
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