19 August 2012 :

An error made by a judge took Nathaniel Jackson off of death row for about 2 years, but that same judge put him back on death row. Judge John M. Stuard of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court resentenced Jackson, 40, to the death penalty for conspiring with Donna Roberts in 2001 to kill Roberts' husband, Robert Fingerhut. Roberts is also on death row for her role in the killing. Jackson returned to Trumbull County for the resentencing, which Ohio's 11th District Court of Appeals ordered Judge Stuard to do in October 2010 as a result of a finding that the 1st sentencing in 2002 was flawed. The flaw was a common practice at the Trumbull County Courthouse at the time involving the preparation of the sentencing opinion, a document filed with the court. The appeals court found that Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, prepared the sentencing opinion in the Jackson case at the direction of Judge Stuard without Jackson and his attorneys being made aware of it. Judge Stuard said he made his decision in the Jackson case on his own and discussed nothing of substance with Becker while asking him to prepare the opinion. (see also Nov. 20, 2002).