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Article: Parole board is fast, loose in death case
- Article from:
- Dayton Daily News
- Article date:
- September 2, 2005
CopyrightCopyright 2005 Dayton Daily News. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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OHIO'S PAROLE BOARD HAS RECOMMENDED NO leniency for John Spirko,
no delay in his Sept. 20 execution date so that a federal judge in
Toledo might have adequate time to sort out troubling questions about
his guilt.
Clemency review is supposed to be a safety valve, a procedure
designed to make certain the state doesn't commit an egregious
mistake when it delivers a lethal injection. The process in Ohio, in
fact, is slipshod and lax. The parole board doesn't appear to
recognize, much less enforce, basic formalities that help ensure
fairness.
One of the parole board's nine members, for example, conducts an
in-depth interview with the inmate. This is the only face-toface
meeting with the ...