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.

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