Please continue to circulate petitions; HOLD ON TO THEM. Keep collecting signatures for John Spirko, in spite of the reprieve (see below).  For now, concentrate on piling up signatures against the killing of Glenn Benner.
 
Individuals should consider contacting Governor Taft and thanking him for granting the reprieve and understanding  the real meaning of justice.  Or: Write a letter to the editor in the same vein.

77 South High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215
Phone: 614-466-3555
Fax: 614-466-9354
Webmail: www.state.oh.us -->  Governor --> Send a message

Just keep at it!

Write to: clevedp@yahoo.com or kssoltis@yahoo.com for downloadable e-mail attachments.

Call:   216-472-2212 or 216-291-3671 for paper copies; they will be mailed to you.

Mail or fax your signed petitions direct to the Governor.

We acknowledge the suffering of the victims of murder, and the grief and anger of their loved ones. But we reject, from the various ethical and religious perspectives of the Coalition’s  member organizations, the use of state-sponsored killing as a punishment for even the most heinous crimes. The government should not be in the business of taking the life of a conscious human being for the purpose of revenge.

Execution is legalized, ritualized, sanitized, premeditated homicide.

An execution will not bring back the victim. The death penalty does not deter crime. It is applied disproportionately against poor people and members of minority groups. Mistaken convictions do occur. The rest of the Western industrialized world looks upon the United States with horror at our continued use of the death penalty. Above all, capital punishment just continues the cycle of violence and adds to the total of violence in our society.

Ohio killed SEVEN men in 2004; it was second only to Texas and it was the only state that actually increased its rate of execution, at a time when both death sentences and executions continue to decline slowly elsewhere in the nation.

Make no mistake: WE Ohioans will kill Mr. Spirko, and Mr. Benner—not just Governor Taft, not just the staff in the death chamber inside the razor wire at Lucasville. All Ohio taxpayers will take part. The only way we can repudiate the killing is to say, “NO, Governor Taft!”—in a very personal and direct way. What is at stake here goes beyond even these inmates and these victims: it is the moral integrity of Ohio.

Consult your faith; consult your conscience. Will they be killed in your name, with your taxes, or will you join us in protesting the executions and asking for clemency? Please write or call Governor Taft NOW. Sign our petitions. Stand with us at our vigils. Give this information to a friend or to your pastor or rabbi. Thank you.

Governor further delays execution for DNA testing

10/19/2005, 11:47 a.m. ET JOHN McCARTHY Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. Bob Taft on Monday delayed for the third time the execution of man who says he's innocent of a 1982 murder to allow more time for DNA testing.

Attorney General Jim Petro last week asked Taft to delay John Spirko's execution, set for Jan. 19, by six months to allow for the testing of evidence as requested by Spirko's lawyers. Taft's reprieve sets the new date for July 19.

Investigators are testing hairs found on duct tape wrapped around the tarp that contained Betty Jane Mottinger's body.

Petro needs the extra time because of complications presented by testing in a 24-year-old case, he said Monday. The evidence was handled by police and prosecutors whose DNA must be identified, so it will not be confused with that of a suspect. The testing so far has not yielded any substantive clues, he said.

Spirko, 59, was convicted of killing Mottinger, the postmistress in Elgin in northwest Ohio. She was abducted and repeatedly stabbed, then wrapped in a tarp and dumped in a field. Her body was found three weeks later.

Petro's office also will need time to find other potential suspects - including some whose names came up earlier in the case - if the hairs are found to come from someone other than Spirko or Mottinger, he said. Some of the previous suspects live out of state and Ohio might need court orders to demand tests.

Among those individuals is Delaney Gibson, a friend of Spirko's who initially was charged along with Spirko in Mottinger's slaying.

A large part of the prosecution's original case was based on witnesses who identified Gibson through his photograph as being at the post office the day of the killing.

Spirko heard about the reprieve Monday and was "gratified that the testing was going to go forward," said Thomas Hill, one of his attorneys.

"It's been a long ordeal, so I think under the circumstances he's doing pretty well," Hill said.

In November, Taft granted Spirko a 60-day reprieve at the request of Petro, who said he needed that long to test several items that Spirko's attorneys want reviewed.

In September, Taft delayed Spirko's scheduled Sept. 20 execution to look into whether prosecutors presented inaccurate information at his clemency hearing in August.

In a similar case, the Summit County prosecutor determined last month that DNA evidence showed that a man could not have committed the rapes and murder for which he was serving a life sentence and ordered him released.

Petro, a Republican running for governor this year, had sought Clarence Elkins' release for more than a month.

However, his office has argued for Spirko's execution in court and at his clemency hearings. He says the state had proven its case based largely on Spirko's knowledge of details investigators say only someone at the scene could have known. He also points out that every state and federal court upheld Spirko's conviction and sentence.

Board recommends against clemency a second time

10/19/2005, 11:47 a.m. ET The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  A death row inmate's rare second chance to ask for his life to be spared did not change the minds of Ohio Parole Board members who on Wednesday recommended for the second time that his execution go ahead.

Gov. Bob Taft will decide whether to accept the board's 6-3 recommendation to deny clemency or reduce John Spirko's sentence to life in prison without parole for the murder of a postal worker in northwest Ohio.

Taft allowed a second clemency hearing for Spirko after a newspaper report that the state's attorney presented inaccurate information on what Spirko knew about the slaying and his whereabouts on the day it happened.

Most parole board members said they thought the case clearly showed the death penalty was the correct sentence.

"The majority is not convinced that any manifest injustice occurred in Mr. Spirko's case," the board's majority wrote in its recommendation.

Spirko's second hearing was the only such hearing allowed since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. Taft postponed Spirko's execution until Nov. 15 to allow for the new hearing.

Spriko, 59, was convicted in 1982 stabbing of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, the postmistress in Elgin.

Three inmates injure selves as death row move begins

10/18/2005, 2:03 p.m. ET The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Three death row inmates have hurt themselves with self-inflicted cuts in the past five days in an apparent attempt to avoid a transfer to a new prison, The Associated Press has learned.

Two inmates who cut themselves Monday were hurt badly enough to be taken to a hospital for stitches, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Correction and Rehabilitation.

Inmates were given final notice of the move last week and on Tuesday the state transferred the first 31 of 194 men on death row from Mansfield Correctional Institution to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.

Prison officials are investigating but believe the men injured themselves to avoid the transfer, Dean said. She wouldn't say how the men cut themselves but said such behavior, dubbed "self-injurious treatment" by the state, is relatively common.

The last such self-inflicted wound on death row involved an inmate who cut himself in July.

Death row inmate Fred Treesh cut himself Friday and inmates Dennis McGuire and Raymond Twyford cut themselves Monday. McGuire and Twyford were treated at a hospital and released.

The inmates' actions won't prevent them from being transferred eventually, Dean said.

State attorney acknowledges misstatements that led to rare hearing

10/12/2005, 7:05 p.m. ET
By JOHN McCARTHY
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) The state's top lawyer for enforcing the death penalty acknowledged Wednesday that he made misstatements at a hearing about whether a condemned inmate's life should be spared.

Regardless, the evidence is overwhelming that John Spirko committed murder, Deputy Attorney General Tim Prichard said at a rare second clemency hearing.

Gov. Bob Taft delayed the death sentence for Spirko, convicted of killing a northwest Ohio postal worker, after a newspaper report that the state presented inaccurate information about what Spirko knew about the slaying and his whereabouts on the day it happened. For the first time since the state resumed executions in 1999, Taft allowed a second clemency hearing by the Ohio Parole Board.

"We are human. Misstatements can occur," Prichard told the board, without mentioning a specific instance. "The proper place to flesh that out is here, not in the media four days later."

Prichard had given the board a videotape of Spirko's original clemency hearing on Aug. 23. The tape backs Prichard's claims, said James Canepa, chief deputy attorney general of criminal justice. The board did not ask Prichard any questions about what he said on Aug. 23.

"What is also sort of noteworthy here is that Spirko's presentation this time around surprisingly had nothing to do with what Tim did or didn't say at the first hearing," Canepa said.

Prichard also played the board a videotape of Spirko on the witness stand at his trial. On the tape, Spirko acknowledged he was not coerced by a former postal inspector to discuss details of the crime with investigators, as defense lawyers have claimed.

"I don't believe he (the inspector) would bum-rap someone for any price," Spirko says on the tape.

Prichard said Spirko's words sealed the case for the jury.

"The whole thing is what convicts John Spirko. This is why none of those jurors would change their minds," Prichard said.

Defense attorney Thomas Hill said board members did not have all the evidence at Spirko's first hearing in August when they first recommended going ahead with execution.

Now the board must "examine the totality of everything we now know," Hill said.

"There are just too, too many doubts," he said.

Spirko, 59, says he didn't kill Betty Jane Mottinger, the postmistress in Elgin, in 1982. Mottinger, 48, was abducted and stabbed nearly 20 times, wrapped in a curtain and dumped in a field. Her body was found three weeks later.

No physical evidence linked Spirko to Mottinger or to the town of Elgin. Investigators never located the murder weapon or the car used in the crime.

But prosecutors have said Spirko convicted himself by telling investigators details of the slaying, including what clothes and jewelry Mottinger was wearing the day she was abducted.

A comparison of Prichard's statements to the parole board with the case record shows how he mischaracterized evidence, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported after the first clemency hearing.

For example, Prichard told the parole board that a description of Mottinger's purse had to have come from Spirko because investigators didn't know what the missing purse looked like.

But according to the case record, an investigator was given a very similar description of the purse by Mottinger's husband on the day his wife disappeared, 12 weeks before investigators discussed the purse with Spirko.

Spirko was scheduled to die by injection Sept. 20, but Taft ordered the execution delayed until Nov. 15. After the first hearing, the parole board recommended with a 6-3 vote that Taft should not reduce the death sentence to life in prison.

The parole board will make its second recommendation on Oct. 19.

___

On the Net:

Ohio Parole Board: http://www.drc.state.oh.us/web/parboard.htm

Major points in death penalty case

10/12/2005, 6:57 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

(AP) Major differences in the death penalty case of John Spirko, who had a second clemency hearing on Wednesday in the state's case against him for the 1982 stabbing death of Betty Jane Mottinger, postmaster in the northwest Ohio village of Elgin:

PURSE

The state claims Spirko knew that Mottinger's purse was a large cream-colored handbag with brown leather handles and piping.

Spirko's lawyers say that Spirko knew of the purse's appearance because a postal inspector described it for him, something the inspector denies.

NEWS ACCOUNTS

The state claims Spirko knew many details about the case that only someone at the scene of the crime could know because they had not been made public.

Spirko's lawyers say that many of those details were in area newspapers and on television before Spirko was questioned.

ALIBI

Spirko's lawyers claim Spirko spent the day of the killing with his sister and visited a parole officer about a previous conviction.

The state says Spirko's parole officer acknowledged that he met with Spirko but kept no record of the time, including the period in which Mottinger was abducted and killed.

Cheers & Jeers

Friday, October 21, 2005

JEERS . . .
 
to the Ohio Parole Board majority for its steadfast refusal to recognize the ample reasonable doubt that John Spirko murdered small-town Postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger in 1982. "The majority is not convinced that any manifest injustice occurred in Mr. Spirko's case," the board reported on Wednesday. The injustice will be very permanently manifest if the state executes him. Gov. Bob Taft has absolutely nothing to lose by exercising his authority to commute Spirko's sentence to life in prison.

Recent commentaries by Regina Brett, Plain Dealer columnist

rbrett@plaind.com, 216-999-6328

Justice demands inmate be spared

Friday, October 21, 2005

You've heard of reasonable doubt?

This is a case of residual doubt.

In 25 days, the state plans to execute John Spirko even though a third of the Ohio Parole Board came up with four pages of reasons he should not be killed.

On Wednesday, the board voted 6-3 against a clemency recommendation.

The dissenting members concluded that there is too much "residual doubt" to execute Spirko for the 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger.

Mottinger was abducted from a rural post office in Elgin, Ohio, and stabbed to death. The board's dissenters were "perplexed" by the trial theory that Spirko committed the crime with his friend Delaney Gibson.

"The State claims that all exculpatory evidence was provided to Spirko's defense. It appears that some crucial evidence was not made available." The jury never saw evidence that placed Gibson in North Carolina the day before the abduction.

"Those photos are significant, as they contrast with Opal Seibert's eyewitness testimony that the man she identified as Gibson on August 9th was clean-shaven. . . . We cannot ignore the possibility that Gibson was 600 miles away."

Gibson was never tried, so it appears the state used a phony Gibson link to convict Spirko.

Dissenters questioned the credibility of key investigator and lead witness for the state, Paul Hartman: "Hartman, on three recent separate occasions to three separate groups of people, stated he never believed that Gibson was involved."

Hartman claims he said that to mislead reporters and others.

"His apparent deceitful conduct at this critical juncture in the process is reprehensible and further amplifies the claims made by Spirko's counsel suggesting a history of Hartman misconduct."

Then there's Spirko's alibi.

"Spirko and his counsel suggest a plausible alibi that includes a timetable which, if true, would have made it impossible for him to have committed the Mottinger crime."

Spirko said he saw his parole officer and took his sister to the doctor the day of the kidnapping. Dissenters asked, where's the state's timetable?

Then there's John Willier.

Willier contacted William Latham, an investigator for the Wyandot County prosecutor in 1997, saying another man was involved in the crime. Latham told the FBI, which referred him to the U.S. Postal Service, where Hartman handled it. No one interviewed Willier.

"It is inexplicable as to why the 1997 lead was not pursued. . . . Without an investigation of Willier's 1997 interview, we are again left to suspect that others, possibly unrelated to Spirko, played a role in the Mottinger crime."

Finally, no physical evidence links Spirko to the crime.

"While latent fingerprints were found at the Elgin post office, they were not the prints of either Spirko or his alleged co-defendant Gibson. . . . We are left with a case based on circumstantial evidence and questionable eyewitness testimony."

This case drew more pro-clemency mail than any other Ohio death row case: Nearly 3,000 favored it, and just 15 opposed it.

Write Gov. Bob Taft at 77 S. High St., 30th Floor, Columbus, Ohio 43215. Contact him at www.governor.ohio.gov.

Tell him you agree with the dissenters: "Justice is best served in this matter by commuting John Spirko's sentence from death to life without the possibility of parole."

Niece seeks truth about 1982 killing

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Time faded everything but the smile.

The white teeth glow from the old photographs taken 23 days before Betty Jane Mottinger was murdered.

On the back of the snapshots someone wrote the date in pen: July 18th, 1982.

Janie, as her family called her, was abducted, stabbed, wrapped in a paint-spattered dropcloth and dumped in a soybean field near Elgin, Ohio, where she had worked as a postmaster.

Pat Wakefield holds these last pictures of life as tenderly as if they were Janie's last breaths.

Janie is wearing a flowery blue, short-sleeved top. She has brown wavy hair. In one photo, she sits with her husband. In the other, she's linked arm in arm with her sister, Pat's mother.

Pat remembers when Janie graduated from high school. She can still see her walk across the stage. For some reason Pat remembers her shoes. All the other girls wore heels except Janie.

Memory is a funny thing. It sifts and sorts, and comes up with a few moments that stick to the heart.

Pat, who is 60, was 13 years younger than Janie. She remembers Janie as a sweet lady, bright, happy -- and short. Janie's husband once remodeled the kitchen and lowered the counters so she could reach them.

Pat remembers getting the call saying that her aunt was missing, and the agonizing weeks that followed.

She remembers the funeral. The TV reporters. The anger. The body so decomposed they cremated the remains.

"It's not like you could say goodbye," Pat said. "There was this little box to say goodbye to."

Pat called me after reading about John Spirko, the man due to be executed in November for killing Janie. Pat wants people to know two things:

She wants them to know her aunt was more than a victim.

And she wants them to know she's not sure that the man on Death Row killed her aunt.

"She was a sister, my aunt, a daughter," Pat said. "I want her seen as a funny, lovely lady who we miss having in our life."

Pat wants someone to pay for her aunt's death, but she wants to be sure it's the right person. The more she reads, the less she's sure it's Spirko.

No physical evidence links him to the crime. None of the fingerprints from the post office matched Spirko. Keys found at the scene were not linked to Spirko. The friend the state said committed the crime with Spirko was in North Carolina at the time. The integrity of the key investigator has been questioned by his own co-workers.

On top of that, years ago another man came forward to say someone else killed Janie.

The parole board meets on Tuesday to decide Spirko's fate.

Pat comes from a private family that never talked much about the murder. Her uncle is adamant that Spirko did it because Spirko confessed.

Or so the lead postal inspector said. But the inspector's co-worker said he personally witnessed "unprofessional comments and, in some instances, conduct [bordering] on criminal" by that same inspector.

Pat's mom, Evelyn, was Janie's oldest sibling. Evelyn is 80 and lives with Pat. Pat doesn't talk to her about the case.

"I don't think she ever got over it," Pat said. "My mom never dealt with the grief. She carried it around."

Pat carries around a knot in her stomach from all the doubt.

"I don't want this man executed," Pat said. "I don't want someone saying two months after the execution, 'We killed the wrong man.' "

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

John Spirko was supposed to die Tuesday.

Two weeks ago, the governor delayed the execution so the Ohio Parole Board could take another look at the case.

Kudos to Gov. Bob Taft for doing the right thing and to the parole board for asking for another clemency hearing.

Also, many thanks to all of you who wrote letters to the governor and to the parole board.

The new clemency hearing is on Oct. 12.

Since the last hearing, more concerns have surfaced about the credibility of the man who helped put Spirko on death row.

Spirko was convicted of killing Betty Jane Mottinger, a postmaster in rural Elgin, Ohio. She was stabbed to death in 1982.

Paul Hartman was the lead postal inspector investigating the murder. Spirko was convicted based almost entirely on Hartman's word.

Hartman's credibility has already been questioned. Hartman never taped his interviews with Spirko and never had Spirko sign any written statements. He lured Spirko into implicating a friend, Delaney Gibson.

But before the trial, Hartman had photos, receipts and witnesses that showed Gibson was out of state at the time. That evidence was filed away and the State tried the case using the phony Gibson connection.

This year, Hartman told at least three people that he never believed Gibson was involved and that he told prosecutors so before the trial. Now Hartman says he said that to purposely mislead a reporter and Spirko's attorneys.

But Postal Inspector Gregory Duerr recently wrote the parole board to say that Hartman was the subject of an investigation by the Postal Service regarding complaints about his behavior.

Duerr wrote, "I witnessed unprofessional comments and, in some instances, conduct bordering on criminal."

Duerr, who worked with Hartman in the Cleveland office, wrote, "most if not all inspectors in Cleveland have concerns about what is transpiring."

Add this to the list of doubts about Spirko's guilt.

No physical evidence links Spirko to the crime.

Eight years ago, John Willier, who was once a suspect in the murder, told prosecutors in Wyandot County that Dale Dingus committed the crime. (Dingus denies it.) Willier and Dingus painted houses in the area. The body was wrapped in a cloth splattered with paint.

While Willier was in prison on a drug trafficking conviction, an inmate said Willier admitted killing the postmaster over a botched shipment of drugs.

Steven Drizin, legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, has called this "one of the weakest death-penalty cases" he has ever seen.

In March, The Plain Dealer asked the U.S. Postal Inspection Service for all documents about an inquiry into Hartman's investigative tactics from the late 1990s. The agency wouldn't release them.

Spirko's lawyers have asked the state attorney general's office to demand all documents pertaining to Duerr's complaint.

The office should comply. A man's life depends on it.

Every postal inspector with concerns about Hartman needs to come forward and speak up.

They should contact Gary Croft, chairman of the Ohio Parole Board, at 1050 Freeway Drive North, Columbus, Ohio 43229. Or fax him at 614-752-0600.

As Duerr wrote: "It appears an individual who did not commit the crime is going to be executed."

A case built on lies

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Nothing about John Spirko's life makes him a candidate for sympathy.

An incorrigible child with a violent temper, he had already racked up convictions for murder, arson, theft, forgery, breaking and entering and interstate transportation of a stolen car by the young age of 24. By age 36, Spirko had spent virtually his entire adult life behind bars - including 12 years for strangling 72-year-old Myra Ashcraft in her Kentucky home while he and his girlfriend were stealing her jewelry.

Today, Spirko resides on Ohio's death row. He has lived there for more than 20 years after his conviction in the 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, who ran the post office in the tiny town of Elgin, Ohio.

On Sept. 20, Spirko has a date with the executioner - a sentence the Ohio Parole Board will take up on Tuesday in response to a clemency request filed by his lawyers.

This newspaper opposes capital punishment. But even if we supported it, we would favor granting Spirko clemency.

As convincingly detailed in a three-part series in January by The Plain Dealer's Bob Paynter, the case against Spirko in the Mottinger murder is shaky, at best. By using the impenetrable logic of a bumbling criminal, he told authorities he was present at her murder, hoping to parlay a web of lies into a deal that would lessen the penalty he faced in an unrelated assault case. What's more, there was no physical evidence that Spirko was present at Mottinger's slaying. And his ever-changing stories about what happened made no more sense at the time he told them than they do today.

In addition, since April 2004, the former federal postal inspector most responsible for putting Spirko on death row has told at least three individuals - two of them in tape-recorded interviews - that he never believed a key element of the case against Spirko and that he informed prosecutors of those doubts before the trial.

Perhaps Spirko did kill Mottinger. State lawyers oppose the clemency request, arguing in their filing to the parole board that the case against him is overwhelming.

But enough questions have been raised to convince us that Spirko's execution would be an injustice. The parole board should make a recommendation of clemency to Gov. Bob Taft, and the governor should grant it.

As the clock ticks down, yet another option for Spirko rests with U.S. District Judge James Carr in Toledo, who is considering a request from Spirko's lawyers to reopen the case. Carr already has suggested that the state join in a request by Spirko's lawyers asking the Ohio Supreme Court to delay the execution to give him time to conclude his review.

In many ways, Spirko is in a mess of his own making. Not only had he killed before, but his own deceit helped land him on death row.

But lying is not punishable by death. Spirko should be spared a lethal injection.

Spirko execution should be delayed

Sunday, August 21, 2005

 Paul Hartman is a liar.

In five weeks, Ohio will execute a man based on Hartman's credibility, or lack thereof.

Hartman was the postal inspector who investigated the 1982 murder of a postmaster in rural Elgin, Ohio.

Hartman is the main reason John Spirko was convicted of stabbing Betty Jane Mottinger to death.

It's clear that Hartman doesn't even believe his own stories. His statements under oath and in tape-recorded interviews contradict and discredit him.

Until Hartman got involved, nothing in the murder investigation pointed to Spirko. No physical evidence, no fingerprints, no weapon, no DNA.

Hartman was the lead investigator who produced most of the evidence used to convict Spirko. During interviews with Spirko, Hartman lured him into implicating his friend and former cellmate, Delaney Gibson.

The phony Gibson connection helped convict Spirko because an "eyewitness" identified an old photo of Gibson as the stranger she saw hanging around town the morning of the murder. The key element of the case was that Spirko committed the murder with Gibson.

But Hartman had photos, receipts and witnesses placing Gibson more than 500 miles away from Elgin the night before the crime. This evidence weakened the case against Spirko, so prosecutors filed it away.

Spirko's attorneys didn't get that information until 12 years after the conviction.

In the past 16 months, Hartman has told at least three people - two of them in tape-recorded interviews - that he never believed Gibson was involved in the murder and that he told prosecutors about his doubts before the trial.

When questioned about those statements months later, Hartman changed his story. Under oath, he admitted he "purposely misled" a Plain Dealer reporter and Spirko's attorneys.

Another factor that led to Spirko's conviction were so-called "intimate" details that Hartman said Spirko knew about the crime. But some of those details were wrong, others had been in the news, and some - like the Gibson connection - might have been suggested by Hartman.

Hartman never taped his interviews with Spirko, never had Spirko sign a written statement.

How convenient.

A federal judge in Toledo is considering a request to reopen the case. But Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro is in a rush to execute Spirko.

Why?

Why, after 20 years, rush to execute a man before a federal judge can review the case?

Are we afraid of the truth? Are we afraid that if Spirko is not guilty, Ohio will owe him money for a wrongful conviction?

Spirko's lawyers have asked the Ohio Parole Board to recommend clemency. The board meets on Tuesday.

Write Governor Bob Taft, 30th Floor 77 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215-6117.

Call him at 614-466-3555.

Fax him at 614-466-9354.

Go to www.governor.ohio.gov and e-mail him at the top of the page.

Ask him to delay the Sept. 20 execution of John G. Spirko.

Ask him to allow a federal judge to examine the case and dispel all doubts.

Ask him to set aside the death penalty.

By Hartman's own admission, it's clear we can't believe him.

If we can't believe Hartman, how can we execute Spirko?

We can't.

UPDATE: EXECUTIONS IN OHIO

Most recently, on March 8, 2005, the State of Ohio executed William H. Smith. by deliberate poisoning, for the 1987 murder of Mary Bradford. We of the Cleveland Coalition Against the Death Penalty condemn this execution and all others. We offer our sympathy and concern to the family and friends of Mary Bradford; she should not have died in senseless violence at the hand of another. May Mary Bradford and William H. Smith rest in peace.

EXECUTED BY OHIO

1999        Wilford Berry

2001        Jay D. Scott

2002        John Byrd

                Alton Coleman

                Robert Buell

2003        Richard Fox

                David Brewer

                Ernest Martin

2004        Lewis Williams

                John Glenn Roe

                William Wickline

                William Zuern

                Steven Vrabel

                Scott Mink

                Adremy Dennis 

2005        William H. Smith

May they rest in peace.

VICTIMS OF MURDER

Charles Mitroff

Vinnie Prince

Monte Tewksbury

Marlene Walters

Krista Lea Harrison

Leslie Keckler

Sherry Byrne

Robert Robinson

Leoma Chmielewski

Donette Crawford

Peggy Lerch

Christopher Lerch

Philip Pence

Susan Clemente

Lisa Clemente

Sheila Mink

William Mink

Kurt Kyle

Mary Bradford

May they rest in peace.