The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections clemency report on Shawn Hawkins is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Today's Cincinnati Enquirer reports, "Clemency recommended for death row inmate." It's written by Jon Craig.
There are too many lingering doubts in a 21-year-old murder conviction to warrant next month’s execution of Shawn Hawkins, a unanimous Ohio Parole Board told Gov. John Kasich on Thursday, instead recommending that Hawkins spend the rest of his life in prison.
Hawkins, 42, is on death row for fatally shooting two teenagers in Mount Healthy in June 1989. In its 7-0 clemency recommendation, the board wrote it is “not convinced that Shawn Hawkins is innocent,” but said there are lingering questions about others involved.
The board concluded that police and the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office failed to fully investigate the role four others played – including the only eyewitness, Henry Brown Jr.
Murder and robbery charges against Brown were dropped after the 16-year-old testified against Hawkins.
The board said it was troubled by Hawkins’ inability to remember what he did with a pager used to set up a marijuana sale, and why he initially told police he was never in the car in which the victims were found. Hawkins’ partial bloody thumbprint was found on a notebook in the Hyundai.
And:
Anthony G. Covatta Jr., Hawkins’ defense attorney, said there is no statute of limitations on murder; he’s asked for a new trial. At last week’s parole board hearing, Covatta named two people he thinks fatally shot Diamond Marteen, 19, and Terrance Richard, 18.
“The death penalty is a fate that Shawn does not deserve,” Covatta said.Hawkins has always maintained his innocence, including during a Death Row interview last month at Ohio State Penitentiary near Youngstown. He won’t name who he thinks killed Marteen and Richard – insisting he has no firsthand knowledge of the execution-style shootings. The interview prompted one of the 12 jurors who convicted Hawkins to write a letter to the parole board expressing her doubts about Hawkins’ conviction.
“I wish it was more overwhelming that he was guilty,” Patricia Dupps of Loveland wrote. Life without parole was not a sentencing option in 1990.
Kasich had no immediate comment, according to his spokesman. Three inmates have been executed since Kasich took office in January, and a fourth is scheduled Tuesday. Six convicted killers have had their death sentences commuted to life in prison without parole since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.
The AP report, "Mercy recommended for killer with June execution date," is by Andrew Welsh-Huggins. It's via the Columbus Dispatch.
The Ohio Parole Board recommended mercy yesterday for a condemned killer of two scheduled to die in June, a relatively rare step by a board that generally sides with the state in its rulings.
The final decision on whether to spare Shawn Hawkins now rests with Gov. John Kasich, who has allowed three executions to proceed since becoming governor but has yet to decide on a case where his parole board recommended in favor of the inmate.
The board, by a 7-0 vote, said it had no doubt Hawkins was involved in the 1989 slaying of two men in Cincinnati and likely shot the men, but it said it was troubled by many aspects of his conviction.
"The Board is not confident in the death sentence in this case, but is also not convinced that Shawn Hawkins is innocent," yesterday's ruling said.
Related posts are in the clemency index.
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