Post by thinkinkmesa on Jul 13, 2011 10:32:09 GMT -5
Hartmann seeks stay, clemency as execution looms again
Condemned murderer Brett Hartmann is asking a federal judge to delay his execution next month and order more DNA testing that Summit County prosecutors refuse to give.
Hartmann’s request for a stay came on the eve of a clemency hearing he has scheduled today with the Ohio Parole Board. He is scheduled to be executed Aug. 16.
During a similar hearing two years ago, the parole board declined to recommend clemency to then-Gov. Ted Strickland.
A week before his scheduled execution in 2009, three federal appellate judges granted Hartmann a stay, citing “uncertainty” surrounding his conviction for the 1997 kidnapping and slaying of Highland Square resident Winda Snipes.
Five months later, the same judges lifted the stay after determining more DNA testing was unlikely to prove Hartmann’s innocence.
In Monday’s filing in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, Hartmann’s public defenders reiterate their demands for additional DNA testing on crime scene evidence and an examination of hairs, a used condom and fingerprints.
“Our main hope is that we can finally get access to scientific evidence in this case so it can be submitted to forensic testing and we can find out whose hair is there, whose condom, whose fingerprints are those. Those questions should be answered before Mr. Hartmann is executed,” said attorney Michael Benza.
Hartmann’s attorneys appear to be the first in Ohio to cite a March decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that lets inmates use federal civil-rights laws to force prosecutors to release evidence for DNA testing.
Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh, who was named a defendant in the lawsuit, has refused to release any evidence for further testing without a court order. In a letter to Hartmann’s attorneys in 2009, Walsh cited previous DNA testing, ordered after Hartmann’s conviction, that further implicated him in the slaying.
A spokeswoman for Walsh’s office referred questions to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which handles death penalty litigation on behalf of the state. Lisa Peterson Hackley, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Mike DeWine, said Hartmann’s lawsuit is being reviewed.
“However, a preliminary look at the filings indicates that the claims he is making now about DNA have been denied at both the state and federal levels,” Hackley said in an email.
Hartmann’s attorneys contend Snipes was involved with an abusive boyfriend whose alibi for the time of the killing was never fully investigated by Akron police.
Snipes, 46, was found dead in her South Highland Avenue apartment. Her body was bound at the ankles, her torso stabbed more than 130 times, her neck slashed and her hands severed and missing.
Hartmann, who had a casual sexual relationship with Snipes, contends he had been with her about 14 hours earlier during a sexual encounter, but did not kill her.
It was Hartmann, then 23, who reported finding Snipes’ body. He told police he went to her apartment, discovered her mutilated body and panicked, fearing police would pin the murder on him. He cleaned up evidence of his previous visit — cigarette butts, beer cans and his T-shirt, which he said was left behind in his haste to leave Snipes after their sexual encounter.
About two hours after finding the body, he made a series of 911 calls in an attempt to report Snipes’ death anonymously. He was later arrested when his bloody shirt and a watch belonging to Snipes was found in his bedroom. His semen was also found in Snipes’ body.
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
www.ohio.com/news/local/hartmann-seeks-stay-clemency-as-execution-looms-again-1.224707
Condemned murderer Brett Hartmann is asking a federal judge to delay his execution next month and order more DNA testing that Summit County prosecutors refuse to give.
Hartmann’s request for a stay came on the eve of a clemency hearing he has scheduled today with the Ohio Parole Board. He is scheduled to be executed Aug. 16.
During a similar hearing two years ago, the parole board declined to recommend clemency to then-Gov. Ted Strickland.
A week before his scheduled execution in 2009, three federal appellate judges granted Hartmann a stay, citing “uncertainty” surrounding his conviction for the 1997 kidnapping and slaying of Highland Square resident Winda Snipes.
Five months later, the same judges lifted the stay after determining more DNA testing was unlikely to prove Hartmann’s innocence.
In Monday’s filing in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, Hartmann’s public defenders reiterate their demands for additional DNA testing on crime scene evidence and an examination of hairs, a used condom and fingerprints.
“Our main hope is that we can finally get access to scientific evidence in this case so it can be submitted to forensic testing and we can find out whose hair is there, whose condom, whose fingerprints are those. Those questions should be answered before Mr. Hartmann is executed,” said attorney Michael Benza.
Hartmann’s attorneys appear to be the first in Ohio to cite a March decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that lets inmates use federal civil-rights laws to force prosecutors to release evidence for DNA testing.
Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh, who was named a defendant in the lawsuit, has refused to release any evidence for further testing without a court order. In a letter to Hartmann’s attorneys in 2009, Walsh cited previous DNA testing, ordered after Hartmann’s conviction, that further implicated him in the slaying.
A spokeswoman for Walsh’s office referred questions to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which handles death penalty litigation on behalf of the state. Lisa Peterson Hackley, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Mike DeWine, said Hartmann’s lawsuit is being reviewed.
“However, a preliminary look at the filings indicates that the claims he is making now about DNA have been denied at both the state and federal levels,” Hackley said in an email.
Hartmann’s attorneys contend Snipes was involved with an abusive boyfriend whose alibi for the time of the killing was never fully investigated by Akron police.
Snipes, 46, was found dead in her South Highland Avenue apartment. Her body was bound at the ankles, her torso stabbed more than 130 times, her neck slashed and her hands severed and missing.
Hartmann, who had a casual sexual relationship with Snipes, contends he had been with her about 14 hours earlier during a sexual encounter, but did not kill her.
It was Hartmann, then 23, who reported finding Snipes’ body. He told police he went to her apartment, discovered her mutilated body and panicked, fearing police would pin the murder on him. He cleaned up evidence of his previous visit — cigarette butts, beer cans and his T-shirt, which he said was left behind in his haste to leave Snipes after their sexual encounter.
About two hours after finding the body, he made a series of 911 calls in an attempt to report Snipes’ death anonymously. He was later arrested when his bloody shirt and a watch belonging to Snipes was found in his bedroom. His semen was also found in Snipes’ body.
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
www.ohio.com/news/local/hartmann-seeks-stay-clemency-as-execution-looms-again-1.224707