NBC News reports one of the eight board members backed a full pardon, which DeWine—who in June called for ending the death penalty in the state—can still grant.
Five members voted in favor of commuting his sentence, while two were against. The Akron Beacon Journal reports there is no deadline for DeWine's decision.
Noling, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1990 murders of Cora and Bearnhardt Hartig, has long maintained his innocence; no physical evidence tied him to the crime, and the teen witnesses who implicated him later recanted, saying police pressured them.
The Ohio Innocence Project points to suppressed evidence and alternative suspects, including a man later executed for another killing.
Noling, for his part, had requested a pardon and previously said he would not accept a commutation to life without parole.
Noling, for his part, had requested a pardon and previously said he would not accept a commutation to life without parole.
Background
On April 5, 1990, 81-year-old Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig were shot to death in their home on Moff Road in rural Atwater Township, Portage County, Ohio. The couple was found seated at their kitchen table. Evidence indicated the shooter was likely seated across from them, and the home was ransacked, though little or nothing of value appears to have been taken. The murder weapon was a .25-caliber handgun that was never recovered.
Tyrone Noling (then 18) and three younger friends—Gary St. Clair, Joseph (Joey) Dalesandro, and Butch Wolcott (who was only 14 at the time of the crime)—came under suspicion because they had committed a series of minor thefts and two home-invasion robberies of elderly couples in Alliance around the same time.
In one of those robberies, Noling accidentally discharged a .25-caliber pistol into the floor. No physical evidence (fingerprints, DNA, blood, or stolen property) linked Noling or the group to the Hartig home, which was about 15 miles away in a more secluded area. A cigarette butt found in the driveway was tested with then-available methods and excluded Noling and his three associates. The then-Portage County Sheriff Kenneth P. Howe initially dismissed them as suspects, saying the crime “just didn’t fit.”
Initial aggravated burglary charges against Noling related to the Hartigs were dropped in 1992–1993 after he passed a polygraph test denying involvement. The case went cold until a new investigator for the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office, Ron Craig, reopened it. Craig obtained statements from St. Clair, Dalesandro, and Wolcott implicating Noling as the triggerman in a robbery-gone-wrong. These statements formed the core of the prosecution’s case.
Noling was re-indicted in 1995. At the 1996 trial, the three young men testified (or had prior statements introduced) that Noling shot the Hartigs. St. Clair recanted on the stand and was treated as a hostile witness, with his earlier statement read into the record. Two jailhouse informants also claimed Noling had confessed to them. There was no physical evidence tying Noling to the scene, the murder weapon was never found, and Noling’s own .25-caliber pistol was excluded by ballistics. A jury convicted him of the murders, and he was sentenced to death. He has always maintained his innocence.
Noling’s advocates, including the Ohio Innocence Project, argue the conviction rests almost entirely on unreliable, coerced testimony that has since collapsed. Fingerprints, DNA, and other forensic links are absent despite the home being ransacked and items touched. The cigarette butt DNA excluded Noling’s group. Ballistics ruled out his gun.
All three principal witnesses (St. Clair, Dalesandro, and Wolcott) later recanted, stating in affidavits, videos, and other statements that investigator Ron Craig used threats, false claims of evidence (such as nonexistent DNA or an eyewitness), pressure, and coaching to extract false confessions.
They said they implicated Noling (and themselves) out of fear of long prison sentences. Wolcott received immunity; the others received plea deals. Expert opinions (including from false-confession specialist Richard Ofshe) have described the statements as unreliable and produced by coercive tactics. Courts have generally rejected the recantations as not credible, but they form a central part of the innocence claim.
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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