Sept. 9 COLORADO: Life sentence in murder for hire A man who had been facing a death sentence in a murder-for-hire case was spared execution Wednesday as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. A Denver judge sentenced Abraham Hagos to life in prison without parole for the 2002 murder of a witness who was supposed to testify in his drug case. Authorities said Hagos had the witness, James Roberts, killed. Hagos, 30, was convicted of 1st- degree murder but was awaiting sentencing in 2002 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that death sentences must be decided by juries not judges. For a time, death sentences were decided in Colorado by a 3-judge panel. Hagos and another man, Randy Canister, were the last two death penalty cases tried under the state's old law and had not been sentenced when the U.S. Supreme Court made its ruling. It was then up to the Colorado Supreme Court to make a judgment on how Hagos could be sentenced. The state's high court determined that Hagos could not be sentenced to death because the jury that heard his case already had been disbanded. The 45-minute hearing was calm compared with some previous ones. In the emotionally charged conclusion to Hagos' trial, he punched a prosecutor and was subdued by stun guns after the verdict was read. This time was different. Hagos sat expressionless for most of the hearing. At the beginning, however, he leaned back in his chair, smiled at his family and raised his eyebrows. His sisters and mother quietly wiped away tears while Hagos' lawyer, Lindy Frolich, requested that his belongings be returned to his family. The items, being held by the state, included a 1992 green Lexus, a computer and $3,185 in cash. All of that, except $2,223, will be given to Hagos' sister, Eliza. The sum withheld will pay off bills for Roberts' burial. His family did not attend Wednesday's hearing. "He's not who they're making him out to be," Eliza Hagos said of her brother after the hearing. "He's a very smart kid." His mother, Amleset Seyoum, wept loudly in the hallway outside the courtroom, grabbing onto a ledge in the wall to hold herself up. "Sometimes we don't know if it was best to leave Ethiopia," Eliza Hagos said of their move to the United States in 1981. "This was not our dream." Prosecutors were disappointed to learn that Hagos would be spared the death penalty. They saw him as a dangerous criminal willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid prison and police. In the end, however, Hagos will serve 2 consecutive life sentences and an additional 98 years for crimes committed in the murder-for-hire case and the kidnapping and beating of another man in 1997. Prosecutor Joe Morales said the length of the sentence will show that Roberts' life meant something "since it meant nothing to Mr. Hagos." (source: Rocky Mountain News) OHIO: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction NEWS RELEASE -- MEDIA ADVISORY -- September 8, 2005 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date Scheduled for Clemency Hearing The Ohio Parole Board will conduct the clemency hearing for death row inmate John Spirko, #171433, on October 12, 2005, at 10:00 a.m. The hearing will take place at the Adult Parole Authority Office located at 1030 Alum Creek Drive, Columbus, Ohio. Any media wishing to attend should arrive at the site no later than 9:45 a.m. If you plan to attend the clemency hearing, please contact the DRC Public Information Office no later than noon on Friday, September 30, 2005. For more information, please contact the DRC Public Information Office at (614) 752-1150. (source: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction)
