Post by guest on Aug 14, 2009 22:21:04 GMT -5
Commentary: Strickland faces thankless decision on death penalty
By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer
Updated 11:12 PM Thursday, August 13, 2009
Along with gun control, the death penalty truly ranks among the Untouchable Issues.
Most mainstream politicians would rather swallow a box of nails than to get anywhere near either topic. It doesn’t matter how many Death Row inmates are proven to be innocent; there appears to be no political quarter in opposing capital punishment.
So you have to give Gov. Ted Strickland credit, on two previous occasions, for commuting the death sentences of convicted killers. He even went against the Ohio Parole Board’s recommendation against clemency when — troubled by the lack of physical evidence in the case — he commuted the sentence of John Spirko in 2008. Earlier this year, he followed the parole board’s unanimous recommendation to commute the sentence of Death Row inmate Jeffrey Hill.
Now Strickland faces another thankless decision in considering clemency for 33-year-old Jason Getsy, who is scheduled to be executed on Ohio’s Death Row on Tuesday morning.
It’s hard to drum up sympathy for a hitman like Getsy. He was not quite 20 on July 25, 1995, when he shot 66-year-old Ann Serafino at point-blank range after breaking into her home in Hubbard. He had been hired to kill her 39-year-old son, Charles Serafino, who survived the shooting. He continues to claim the killing was accidental — hardly a sign of contrition.
So why did the Ohio Parole Board, by a vote of 5-2, recommend that Getsy’s death sentence be commuted to life without possibility of parole?
It’s a question of equal justice.
Getsy’s accomplices are all serving lighter sentences, including the man who hired him to do the killing. John Santine is serving 20 years to life for ordering the hit against Charles Serafino, his business rival.
“If you want to talk about justice being blind, this is a case where justice is not only blind but ignorant,” noted Bob Stoughton of Fairborn, a longtime member of the Miami Valley chapter of Ohioans to Stop Executions. “The guy who was mastermind and chief architect doesn’t get the death penalty, but this guy does. Jason’s life was rough growing up with all sorts of violent impulses. He was Silly Putty in Santine’s hands.”
Kevin Werner, executive director of OTSE, observed, “The parole board doesn’t normally recommend clemency, so there is clearly something about this case that is different and deserving.”
Strickland’s office is remaining mum on what he’ll decide, or when.
“I’m very hopeful, for sure, based on the governor’s past history,” said Sister Alice Gerdeman, a Cincinnati nun and ardent death-penalty opponent who has stood vigil at more than 30 executions since Ohio reinstituted the death penalty in 1999. “This kind of case proves that we have a system that works — that admits that juries can make mistakes, or that some discrepancies aren’t fair. That’s the reason we give governors the right to commute death sentences.”
She still clings to the politically unpopular hope of ending the death penalty in America.
In the meantime, she’ll settle for one victory at a time.
www.daytondailynews.com/news/politics/commentary-strickland-faces-thankless-decision-on-death-penalty-248662.html
By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer
Updated 11:12 PM Thursday, August 13, 2009
Along with gun control, the death penalty truly ranks among the Untouchable Issues.
Most mainstream politicians would rather swallow a box of nails than to get anywhere near either topic. It doesn’t matter how many Death Row inmates are proven to be innocent; there appears to be no political quarter in opposing capital punishment.
So you have to give Gov. Ted Strickland credit, on two previous occasions, for commuting the death sentences of convicted killers. He even went against the Ohio Parole Board’s recommendation against clemency when — troubled by the lack of physical evidence in the case — he commuted the sentence of John Spirko in 2008. Earlier this year, he followed the parole board’s unanimous recommendation to commute the sentence of Death Row inmate Jeffrey Hill.
Now Strickland faces another thankless decision in considering clemency for 33-year-old Jason Getsy, who is scheduled to be executed on Ohio’s Death Row on Tuesday morning.
It’s hard to drum up sympathy for a hitman like Getsy. He was not quite 20 on July 25, 1995, when he shot 66-year-old Ann Serafino at point-blank range after breaking into her home in Hubbard. He had been hired to kill her 39-year-old son, Charles Serafino, who survived the shooting. He continues to claim the killing was accidental — hardly a sign of contrition.
So why did the Ohio Parole Board, by a vote of 5-2, recommend that Getsy’s death sentence be commuted to life without possibility of parole?
It’s a question of equal justice.
Getsy’s accomplices are all serving lighter sentences, including the man who hired him to do the killing. John Santine is serving 20 years to life for ordering the hit against Charles Serafino, his business rival.
“If you want to talk about justice being blind, this is a case where justice is not only blind but ignorant,” noted Bob Stoughton of Fairborn, a longtime member of the Miami Valley chapter of Ohioans to Stop Executions. “The guy who was mastermind and chief architect doesn’t get the death penalty, but this guy does. Jason’s life was rough growing up with all sorts of violent impulses. He was Silly Putty in Santine’s hands.”
Kevin Werner, executive director of OTSE, observed, “The parole board doesn’t normally recommend clemency, so there is clearly something about this case that is different and deserving.”
Strickland’s office is remaining mum on what he’ll decide, or when.
“I’m very hopeful, for sure, based on the governor’s past history,” said Sister Alice Gerdeman, a Cincinnati nun and ardent death-penalty opponent who has stood vigil at more than 30 executions since Ohio reinstituted the death penalty in 1999. “This kind of case proves that we have a system that works — that admits that juries can make mistakes, or that some discrepancies aren’t fair. That’s the reason we give governors the right to commute death sentences.”
She still clings to the politically unpopular hope of ending the death penalty in America.
In the meantime, she’ll settle for one victory at a time.
www.daytondailynews.com/news/politics/commentary-strickland-faces-thankless-decision-on-death-penalty-248662.html