Ohio Governor Bob Taft has granted clemency to Jerome Campbell, who was scheduled to be executed on June 27th for a 1988 murder in Cincinnati. The clemency, Taft’s first since he took office, follows the recommendation of the state’s Parole Board, which voted 6 – 2 in favor of clemency. Defense attorneys maintain that Campbell should be retried because a DNA test he requested from the state showed that blood on his gym shoes introduced as trial evidence was Campbell’s own blood, not the victim’s. The results marked the first time an Ohio prisoner obtained DNA test results through a state law that allows death row inmates to have DNA testing at the state’s expense. In its recommendation, the Parole Board noted that jurors may have spared Campbell’s life during his initial trial had they had the opportunity to consider the DNA information.
(Associated Press, June 26, 2003). See Clemency.