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OHIO (USA). GOVERNOR COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE
January 9, 2008: Death row inmate John Spirko, 61, wanted a pardon or the chance to leave prison and prove his innocence. He got neither, though he did escape execution.
Gov. Ted Strickland commuted Spirko's death sentence to life in prison, a week after the state attorney general's office said it had concluded no DNA evidence linked Spirko to a 26-year-old murder.
Strickland made clear he wasn't convinced of Spirko's innocence. But he said he couldn't ignore the lack of physical evidence linking Spirko to the 1982 slaying of Betty Jane Mottinger and "the slim residual doubt" about Spirko's responsibility for it.
Those factors make "the imposition of the death penalty inappropriate in this case," said Strickland, a death penalty supporter.
Spirko's attorneys had asked for a full pardon, a conditional pardon or a commutation to time served, all of which would have allowed Spirko to be released.
Strickland said state and federal courts reviewed and upheld Spirko's conviction and the parole board twice rejected his petition for clemency. Under the commutation order, Spirko will not be eligible for parole.
"At times, when he wasn't denying having committed the murder, he appears to have admitted doing so," Strickland said. "Spirko's claims that his own lies led to his conviction for an offense that he did not commit are unpersuasive in the face of the judicial scrutiny this case has received."
Spirko's attorneys said they were disappointed that Strickland did not free him.
"There can be no joy in the commutation of an innocent man's sentence to life without parole," attorneys Tom Hill and Alvin Dunn said in a statement.
"The positive thing about Gov. Strickland's commutation is that the state will now not execute an innocent man and that we can, and will, continue to fight for Mr. Spirko's complete exoneration and release," the statement said. (Sources: AP, 09/01/2008)
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