In an editorial entitled “Too Many Questions” that followed a two-part news series examining new information that casts doubt on the guilt of Ohio death row inmate John Spirko, the Mansfield News Journal of Ohio called for a re-examination of Spirko’s case before the state allows an execution to go forward. A federal judge in the same case has said he has considerable doubts about the lawfulness of the case against Spirko. The editorial noted:

It’s not often we call for careful reconsideration of the criminal case involving an inmate on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution. The judicial system in death penalty cases has many checks and balances along the way.

After an examination of the facts surrounding the case, with the benefit of two decades of hindsight, we believe many questions should be answered before this ultimate penalty is exacted.

In a recent two-day series, the News Journal offered information that raises questions about Spirko’s role in the killing of Betty Jane Mottinger. These questions are led by the fact prosecutors decided not to bring accused accomplice Delaney Gibson to trial, a move that has Spirko and his attorneys renewing efforts to get a new trial.

Gibson faced a capital murder charge for the crime while serving 15 years of a 20-to-life sentence in Kentucky for an unrelated murder, but was paroled in July 2001.

At issue are photographs, receipts and other evidence that show a bearded Gibson in North Carolina the night before the crime, which happened at 8:30 a.m. more than 500 miles away in Elgin, near Indiana. Spirko obtained the photographs from postal records after a 10-year fight, and argues the state inappropriately concealed the Gibson alibi.

The state’s key eyewitness testified she was 100-percent certain she saw a clean-shaven Gibson outside the post office the morning of the murder. She was shown an old mug shot of him without a beard and never saw him at trial because he escaped a Kentucky jail and was on the run.

In order for this murder to have occurred in the manner which the state alleges, Gibson must have finished visiting with relatives in North Carolina early Sunday evening, shaved his beard, jumped in a vehicle and drove more than 500 miles through the night to northwestern Ohio. Spirko, a convicted murderer and former cellmate of Gibson’s, was paroled 13 days earlier and was living in Swanton with his sister. He allegedly met Gibson and the pair made the two-hour drive to the tiny village of Elgin, where they robbed the post office of less than $100 before kidnapping and murdering the postmistress.

No physical evidence links Spirko to the crime: He matches none of the fingerprints lifted, no blood evidence, no fibers, no murder weapon, no burglary proceeds.

The chief link is the stories Spirko told trying to bargain himself into the witness protection program and get his girlfriend out of trouble for smuggling him hacksaw blades into the county jail, where he was being held on unrelated assault charges. He admitted his involvement in the killing, according to a postal inspector. That is the primary evidence against him. It’s an admission he now denies.

In a recent opinion, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Ronald Lee Gilman said the case record “leaves me with considerable doubt as to whether he has been lawfully subjected to the death penalty.”

Spirko should not be executed until those questions and doubts have been answered.

(Mansfield News Journal, July 8, 2004) See Innocence.