Staff report from The Vindicator
WARREN
The complicated appeals history of Donna Roberts of Howland, 75, the only woman on Ohio’s death row, has resumed with a filing this week in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court asking for a new trial, a new sentencing hearing or for her conviction to be erased.
Roberts and Nathaniel Jackson were both convicted in the 2001 murder of Roberts’ husband, Robert Fingerhut, in their Howland home.
Roberts helped plan the murder in a series of letters and phone calls while Jackson was in prison on an unrelated case, and Jackson carried out the murder after being released from prison, prosecutors said.
Roberts filed an amended petition in 2015 arguing the jury and grand jury pools in her case were underrepresented by black people. Roberts is white. Jackson is black.
The petition also argued her attorneys were ineffective during her trial.
The reason these arguments to Judge Ronald Rice of common pleas court are being renewed now is that Roberts filed other appeals that took several years to resolve and put this petition on hold.
Chris Becker, assistant county prosecutor, filed a rebuttal Friday, saying the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed her death sentence and conviction in 2017, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review that decision in 2018. Becker asked the judge to dismiss the petition without a hearing because Roberts failed to provide sufficient grounds for it to be considered.
I was contacted by a penpal of Darlie Routier's who gave me some of the most recent advances in her case to share with you all. I began writing to Darlie in December of 2005 and she is one woman whom I will never understand how she got behind bars. Really. You know what else? With all the information ALREADY out there about this case, in addition to the newly discovered info, I think if you can't see this poor woman's innocence, you may just be an asshole. So many legal flubs, so much question and police innuendo that turned out to be nothing. So many fingers pointed and road blocks thrown up, I am surprised this case isn't used in other countries to point to the clusterfuck we call a justice system. I believe Darlie could have been released ages ago if the state had done the necessary DNA testing. Sadly, Texas has tried to stop it in every unconstitutional way they could pull out of a bull's ass. BUT- there is hope on the horizon. This from Camp Darlie
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