"Parole Board recommendation on Arthur Tyler death penalty case due Friday," is by Alan Johnson in the Columbus Dispatch.
The Ohio Parole Board is scheduled Friday to make a pivotal decision in Arthur Tyler's murder case.
The board heard six hours of testimony Thursday from attorneys for Tyler and the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office. Both sides agreed that Tyler should not be executed as scheduled on May 28 for the 1983 murder of 76-year-old Sander Leach outside a Cleveland market. There are conflicting statements in the case from Tyler and Leroy Head, the other man charged in Leach's murder. Head cut a deal with prosecutors in exhange for a lesser sentence and was released from prison five years ago.
Were the case to come up now, both sides agreed, it almost certainly would not have been considered as a death-penalty eligible case. Today, juries are far less inclined to recommend capital punishment.
The two teams of attorneys differed, however, about Tyler's fate. His attorneys urged the board to recommend a sentence commutation to time served, meaning he could be freed from prison. The prosecutor countered that Tyler should get life without the possiblity of parole, in which case he would never get out of prison.
Earlier coverage of Arthur Tyler's case begins at the link.
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