Ohio Governor Ted Strickland grant­ed clemen­cy to Sidney Cornwell, reduc­ing this sen­tence to life with­out parole. Cornwell faced exe­cu­tion on November 16 for a 1996 gang-relat­ed shoot­ing in Youngstown. Attorneys for Cornwell argued that he grew up in an abu­sive envi­ron­ment and that he suf­fered from a genet­ic con­di­tion that con­tributed to his vio­lent ten­den­cies. The attor­neys also said that Cornwell’s death sen­tence was dis­pro­por­tion­ate to sen­tences hand­ed out for sim­i­lar killings in Mahoning County, and that the jury did not have the option of giv­ing him a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Cynthia Mausser, chair­woman of the state parole board, and the only mem­ber who favored clemen­cy for Cornwell said of the evi­dence pre­sent­ed at the clemen­cy hear­ing, ​“I can­not con­clude that it would have made no dif­fer­ence to the out­come of the penal­ty phase, as it seems rea­son­ably prob­a­ble that a juror may have viewed Cornwell and the oth­er mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence pre­sent­ed in a more pos­i­tive light. This evi­dence is sig­nif­i­cant enough to ques­tion the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the out­come of the penal­ty phase and con­clude that the exer­cise of exec­u­tive clemen­cy is war­rant­ed.” Governor Strickland grant­ed clemen­cy in two oth­er cas­es this year: Richard Nields and Kevin Keith. He also com­mut­ed John Spirko’s death sen­tence in 2008 and Jeffrey Hill’s sen­tence in 2009.

(“Stickland grants clemen­cy to Cornwell,” The Vindicator, November 15, 2010). See Clemency, Life Without Parole and Mental Illness.

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