UPDATE: Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio has grant­ed clemen­cy to John Spirko, reduc­ing his death sen­tence to a sen­tence of life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The gov­er­nor cit­ed ​“the lack of phys­i­cal evi­dence link­ing him to the mur­der, as well as the slim resid­ual doubt about his respon­si­bil­i­ty for the mur­der that aris­es from care­ful scruti­ny of the case record” in his state­ment grant­i­ng the com­mu­ta­tion on Jan. 9. (Warrant of Commutation, Governor of Ohio, January 9, 2008). For a full descrip­tion of the case, see below.

The Attorney General of Ohio had dis­closed that two years of state-of-the-art DNA test­ing revealed no links con­nect­ing John Spirko, Jr., 61, to the 1982 kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Betty Jane Mottinger, an Ohio post­mas­ter. Spirko’s defense attor­neys urged Ohio Governor Ted Strickland to grant their client an exec­u­tive par­don for the mur­der on the basis of Spirko’s inno­cence.

Spirko has per­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, stat­ing that, on the day of the crime, he nev­er left the Toledo area to trav­el 100 miles to Elgin, Ohio, where the mur­der took place. His sis­ter cor­rob­o­rat­ed his sto­ry.

Attorneys for the state of Ohio believed at first that Spirko’s for­mer cell­mate, Delaney Gibson, had been an accom­plice to the crime. Spirko had impli­cat­ed Gibson when he fab­ri­cat­ed a sto­ry for inves­ti­ga­tors, a sto­ry that ulti­mate­ly led to his con­vic­tion. Gibson was nev­er pros­e­cut­ed, and Spirko has since admit­ted he made the sto­ry up in order to get a deal for an unre­lat­ed crime.

One of Spirko’s attor­neys, Alvin Dunn, told The Toledo Blade, “[These DNA find­ings are] con­sis­tent with what he has main­tained all along, that he had noth­ing to do with this crime. We believe that if any­body takes a care­ful look at this case he would find that John Spirko was wrong­ly convicted….The gov­er­nor is in a posi­tion to do the right thing in the issue of jus­tice and to pro­tect the legit­i­ma­cy of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.”
(“DNA test does­n’t tie Spirko to crime scene,” by Jim Provance, The Toledo Blade, January 4, 2008). See also Innocence.

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