State court sets execution date for long-serving inmate
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio -The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday set a Sept. 20
execution date for one of the state's longest-serving death row
inmates, a man who maintains he's innocent of the murder of a postal
worker.
John Spirko was sentenced to die for the 1982 murder of Elgin
postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger, but says he didn't do it.
Spirko claims the state's case against him was weakened when death
penalty charges against his co-defendant were dropped last year. He
also says prosecutors withheld key evidence and presented a false case.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Spirko's appeal in March. The
6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Spirko's conviction and
death sentence.
An important element of the Van Wert County prosecutor's case was a
witness who recognized co-defendant Delaney Gibson, a friend of Spirko,
near the Elgin post office the day that Mottinger disappeared.
No physical evidence tied Spirko to the murder. He was convicted of the
killing based largely on his statements to police and the testimony of
the eyewitness who had seen Gibson near the post office. Prosecutors
had alleged that Spirko participated in the kidnapping and killing of
Mottinger along with Gibson.
In an appeal, Spirko's lawyers argued that Gibson could not have
kidnapped Mottinger because he was eight hours away in Asheville, N.C.,
the night before the woman disappeared.
The Van Wert County prosecutor dismissed charges against Gibson on May
17, 2004, the same day the 6th Circuit upheld Spirko's death sentence.
ON THE NET
Ohio Supreme Court:
www.sconet.state.oh.us/
