State Misstates Facts In Death Row Case A top attorney for the state misrepresented the evidence on several key points Tuesday before the Ohio Parole Board in his effort to deny clemency to death-row inmate John Spirko. Spirko is to be executed next month for the 1982 slaying of a rural post master. In his presentation to the board, Senior Deputy Ohio Attorney General Tim Prichard made false statements about important facts. He mischaracterized evidence regarding what Spirko knew about the murder, and regarding Spirko's where- abouts on Aug. 9, 1982. That was the day Betty Jane Mottinger was abducted during a robbery at her Elgin, Ohio, post office. Her body was found six weeks later in a soybean field. In an interview Friday, Prichard denied making misstatements. If his parole board assertions were wrong, he said, it was because he was unaware of the facts. And he suggested that it is Spirko's lawyers who should be confronted for "flat-out lies" to the board. The hearing before the parole board, which plans to issue a recommendation on clemency to Gov. Bob Taft on Tuesday, is one of two final chapters unfolding as Spirko's Sept. 20 execution date nears. The other will soon climax in Toledo, where a federal judge is considering Spirko's argument to reopen his case. Spirko's lawyers say that recently discovered credibility problems with a key prosecution witness have seriously undermined Spirko's conviction. The state disputes that. On Thursday, the Ohio Supreme Court denied a request from Spirko's lawyers to delay the execution. Attorney General Jim Petro has pushed to have Spirko executed on schedule, despite concerns raised about the evidence by a former FBI director, former judges and a national expert on wrongful convictions, who has warned that Ohio risks executing an innocent man. Case may hinge on intimate details' Because the state's primary theory -- that Spirko committed the crime with a friend -- has been undermined by post-trial disclosure of evidence and recent statements by a key witness, the issue of what Spirko knew about the crime has become increasingly important.
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