Ohio death row inmate Billy Slagle commits suicide in cell days before he was set to be executed

Ohio Death Chamber

A KILLER facing execution on Wednesday has been found dead in his cell Sunday on Ohio's death row in an apparent suicide.

Prison spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said Billy Slagle, 44, was found dead in his cell about 5am local time Sunday at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution south of Columbus, Ohio. He was declared dead within the hour.

No other details were immediately provided.

Slagle was sentenced to die for fatally stabling neighbour Mari Anne Pope in 1987 during a Cleveland burglary while two young children were present.

In a rare move, the prosecutor in Cleveland asked the Ohio Parole Board to spare Slagle. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty said jurors today, with the option of life without parole, would be unlikely to sentence Slagle to death.

The parole board and Governor John Kasich both rejected mercy for Slagle.

Last week, Slagle's attorney argued that a jury never got the chance to hear the full details of his troubled childhood.

The attorneys, arguing for a new trial and to delay his execution, said that information met requirements for asking for a new trial, which normally must happen within four months of a conviction.

Slagle was "unavoidably prevented" from filing his request because his original attorneys didn't develop and present the evidence, the filing said.

Mr McGinty and Slagle's attorneys had cited his age - at 18, he was barely old enough for execution in Ohio - and his history of alcohol and drug addiction.

Source: Associated Press, August 4, 2013

Death-row inmate who killed self didn’t know of new hope

Billy Slagle

Convicted killer Billy Slagle killed himself not knowing about an undisclosed plea deal that could have spared him from execution.

As his attorneys hurriedly prepared a last-minute appeal to file with the Ohio Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution — with the promise it would not be opposed by the state — Slagle took matters into his own hands. He hanged himself in his Death Row cell at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution in the early morning hours of Sunday.

Vicki Werneke and Joseph Wilhelm, Slagle’s federal public defenders, are left to wonder “what if?”

“I don’t know what more we could have done,” Werneke said.

Werneke said that late Friday afternoon, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty called Wilhelm with a revelation: County prosecutors had offered Slagle a plea deal at his original trial 26 years ago. If he pleaded guilty, he would serve 30 years and be eligible for parole. However, Slagle’s attorneys at the time did not inform him of the deal; instead, he received the death penalty.

McGinty spokesman Joe Frolik confirmed his boss made the call indicating his office had uncovered information that the prosecutor at the time of Slagle’s trial, the late John T. Corrigan, offered a deal.

“We felt we had an obligation to tell Slagle’s appellate team,” Frolik said. “We said that if they applied for a hearing and stay of execution, we could not oppose them. If a court was looking for a reason to grant a stay, that would have opened the door.”

McGinty’s office previously argued at Slagle’s clemency hearing that he be given life without the possibility of parole, reasoning that the crime, under today’s law, would not be considered punishable by death.

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, August 6, 2013

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