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Thread: Danny Lee Hill - Ohio Execution - July 22, 2026

  1. #21
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Ohio AG appealing decision that would keep child killer off death row

    BY PEGGY GALLEK
    fox8.com

    WARREN -- The Ohio Attorney General is appealing a decision by the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals that would keep a convicted child killer off of death row.

    The A.G.'s Office filed the appeal Friday, seeking a review of the ruling by the three-judge panel that determined that Danny Lee Hill was too mentally deficient to face the death penalty.

    “I am very grateful to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins for asking for the appeal and to our Attorney General Mike DeWine for filing the appeal, “ said Miriam Fife, the mother of Hill’s victim.

    Raymond Fife was 12 years old when he was killed in Warren. His mother last saw him alive on Sept. 10, 1985 when he left on his bike and headed to a Boy Scout meeting.

    Prosecutors and police say Danny Lee Hill, who was 18 at the time, and Timothy Combs, who was 17, attacked, raped, tortured and murdered Fife.

    Both were convicted of aggravated murder and several other charges.

    Since Combs was a juvenile he was sentenced to life in prison. Hill was sent to death row.

    Hill’s attorneys, however, have filed numerous motions saying his IQ is low and he is too intellectually disabled to be executed. A federal appeals court agreed with them earlier this month.

    But Watkins has told Fox 8 the state courts have already heard Lee’s claims and upheld the death sentence.

    http://fox8.com/2018/02/17/ohio-ag-a...off-death-row/
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  2. #22
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Appeal made to Supreme Court in Danny Lee Hill case

    The Warren Tribune-Chronicle

    WARREN — The Ohio Attorney General’s Office has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case of convicted murderer Danny Lee Hill, who, under a lower court’s decision, stands to be removed from Ohio’s death row.

    The request, sought by Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, is on an early 2018 ruling by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that overturns Hill’s sentence and orders him to be resentenced for the brutal murder of Raymond Fife in September 1985. The lower court ruling could result in Hill, 51, being taken off death row and resentenced to life in prison.

    Monday was the deadline for the attorney general’s office to petition the high court.

    A three-judge panel of the circuit court ruled in February state court judges and mental health experts who declared Hill is not intellectually disabled were wrong, and there is clear evidence he is mentally disabled.

    An appeal for the full circuit court to reconsider the panel’s decision was rejected in April.

    Using cases that occurred after Hill’s trial, the circuit court applied rulings that did not exist when Hill was convicted to overturn the death penalty conviction, according to attorney Eric E. Murphy, a lawyer with the state attorney general.

    “The Sixth Circuit improperly graded the state court’s decision based on materials that were unavailable to them,” Murphy wrote in the petition.

    Murphy noted the state court held 11 days worth of hearings during which five expert witnesses concluded Hill either was not mentally impaired or was faking to prevent them to establish his mental capacity.

    Watkins said the state’s “brilliant” petition speaks well for the need of the Supreme Court to review the case.

    “The law requires federal courts to give deference to the judges of state court,” Watkins said. “The rulings of state court judges should be respected, unless there there is unreasonable application of the facts.”

    “Danny Lee Hill was not retarded,” Watkins said. “Hill committed the crime. He went to the police station to seek the reward for evidence leading to arrest of a suspect.”
    Hill, then 18, was sentenced to death for Fife’s murder on Sept. 10, 1985. Fife was attacked in a wooded area near Palmyra Road SW, beaten, sexually tortured, strangled, set on fire and left for dead. He died two days later.

    Co-defendant in the case, Timothy Combs, then 17, is serving multiple, consecutive life sentences since he wasn’t eligible for the death sentence as a juvenile.

    http://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-...lee-hill-case/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
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  3. #23
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/26/2018.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....lic/18-56.html

  4. #24
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Hopefully, SCOTUS will do a grant, reverse and remand on this without oral argument.

  5. #25
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    Would be a major disappointment to my community if they don't.

  6. #26
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Related

    Tim Combs, co-killer of Raymond Fife, dies in prison

    Timothy A. Combs, who along with Danny Lee Hill was convicted of killing a 12-year old boy in Warren in 1985, has died in prison, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections says.

    Combs, 50, died in Franklin County Nov. 9, the Franklin County Coroner’s Office said today. It is not known where in Franklin County, but the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections has a medical facility in Franklin County. It is believed Combs was suffering from a respiratory illness.

    Combs was last incarcerated in the Grafton Correctional Institute in Lorain County.

    Combs was convicted in Portage County Common Pleas Court of the Sept. 10, 1985, murder, torture, kidnapping and rape of Raymond Fife in a wooded area along Palmyra Road Southwest.

    Combs was not eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility in 2049.

    Hill, 51, was sentenced to the death penalty in the case, but that penalty was overturned by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to take up an appeal filed by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. Hill remains in the state prison system while the matter is considered.

    http://www.vindy.com/news/2018/nov/1...e-dies-prison/
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  7. #27
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    This has been relisted 5 times. A reversal or a long dissent from denial of certiorari is probable.

  8. #28
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Journalists recall 1986 Timothy Combs trial

    Tribune Chronicle

    WARREN — The morning after Raymond Fife’s nearly lifeless body was found off of Palmyra Road SW in September 1985, investigators escorted a small group of journalists to the scene.

    “You could just sense something horrific had happened there, behind the grocery store in the wooded area. It was just in the air,” said Mike Semple, Tribune Chronicle photographer.

    As sickening details about the last hours of the 12-year-old Boy Scout’s life emerged, police officers and prosecutors built cases against 17-year-old Timothy Combs and 18-year-old Danny Lee Hill, and local journalists shared the information with the public.

    Andy Gray, the Tribune Chronicle’s entertainment writer, was 23 and had just been assigned the court beat at the newspaper when Fife was murdered.

    Burton Cole, the Tribune Chronicle’s features editor, was 26 and covering the court beat for the Record-Courier in Ravenna.

    Semple, Gray and Cole each covered Combs’ case in Portage County Common Pleas Court, where the trial had been moved because of the media attention the Hill trial had garnered when it was heard in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court months before.

    Both Combs and Hill were eventually convicted. Combs was sentenced to consecutive life sentences behind bars because he was three months shy of 18 when Fife was killed and not eligible for the death penalty.

    But he died Nov. 9 at Select Specialty Hospital in Franklin County, even before the death sentence meted out to Hill could be carried out.

    A cause of death for Combs is still pending, according to the Franklin County Department of Health.

    “In some ways, there is an ironic, poetic justice to Combs dying before Hill,” Gray said. “I always felt like if it had just been Tim Combs in the woods that day, that what happened may have still happened. He seemed to be the main leader. A lot of people, though some may feel differently, think that Combs was the aggressor. Combs had a juvenile history of homosexual rape, and though Hill had a juvenile record for rape too, his crimes were man against woman.”

    Gray had returned from vacation ready to start the court beat, and found the Fife case was his first assignment, after covering the cleanup in Lordstown and Newton Falls from the 1985 tornado. He made the 45-minute drive every day court was in session, and covered it before modern conveniences like a cell phone or computer.

    It was the only trial Cole covered that brought him to tears, he said.

    “I broke down. I don’t know if I cried that much since,” Cole said.

    Cole said he has purposely forgotten many of the details brought out in the trial. Fife was beaten, sexually tortured, strangled with his underwear and set afire.

    “I heard things and saw exhibits that I never want to hear or see again,” Cole said. “There were medical experts and investigators that had to detail what they saw, and how the injuries and wounds would have occurred — all of these gory, step-by-step, sickening details.

    “We covered all murder trials gavel-to-gavel. Some of them were pretty bad, but nothing affected me like this. The other trials, I could kind of get lost in the games prosecutors and defense attorneys play, especially after covering multiple trials with the same attorneys. I could detach myself from some of the bad stuff I covered.

    “This was just a whole different thing. I could not believe human beings would be capable of doing this type of stuff to each other.”

    One thing that sticks in the photographer’s mind, besides the dark court room, which made taking photos difficult in the time before digital cameras were used in the newsroom, was angering Combs with his camera on the first day of the trial.

    “I was taking his photo, and apparently I had irritated Combs because from across the room, he appeared to try to lunge over the banister at me. It was over before I knew it, the sheriff’s deputies were on either side of him and pulled him back. But I’ll never forget it,” said Semple, who was 30 at the time.

    There was less tension for the Combs trial, not that the courtroom wasn’t crowded, after Hill’s conviction, Gray and Semple both said.

    “It seemed like it was a foregone conclusion. It was a quick trial, over and done rather quickly. But still, 32 years later, it hasn’t ended, really. We are still talking about it,” Semple said.

    Hill’s status on death row is in question after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found he is mentally disabled, and therefore ineligible for the death sentence, though other judges have rejected claims Hill is disabled. The U.S. Supreme Court may intervene.

    http://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-...y-combs-trial/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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  9. #29
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Let's hope SCOTUS reverses but is Ohio going to schedule Hill's execution 5 years down the road?

  10. #30
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Editorial:

    Closure deserved in boy’s death


    Tribune Chronicle

    We see a sad irony in the fact that one defendant in the 1985 brutal murder of 12-year-old Raymond Fife — the one who was sentenced to serve a life term — died last week in prison, while the other defendant — the one sentenced to be executed more than 30 years ago — still lives in Ohio’s prison system.

    Ohio death row inmate Danny Lee Hill, now 51, has been incarcerated with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction since 1986. That’s 32 years of being supported at taxpayers’ expense and 32 years of using publicly funded defense attorneys to appeal and fight his death sentence over and over and over again.

    The other defendant, Timothy Combs, died earlier this month while incarcerated at Grafton Correctional Institution in Lorain County. He was 50. He had not been eligible to face the death penalty in his crimes because he was only 17 when the brutal assault and slaying of a 12-year-old boy occurred as he rode his bicycle home after a Boy Scout meeting.

    Undoubtedly every person who ever is accused of a crime in America deserves due process and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But we, like most local residents who recall the heinous crime and subsequent trial, are growing tired and frustrated with the never-ending parade of motions and legal maneuvers that continue to stall Hill’s execution — even after his criminal conviction was first pronounced and subsequent appeals have upheld it.

    In the days after Combs’ Nov. 9 death, his young victim’s mother, Miriam Fife, said the killer’s death left her no cause to rejoice.

    “This is not something that I celebrate,” she said, but then noted, “I will be able to rest in peace that he will not be able to get out and do what was done to Raymond to anyone else.”

    Miriam Fife’s words were spoken with the dignity — and profound sadness — that have remained all these years.

    Certainly, she now deserves to have that same closure and opportunity to rest in peace with an end to the appeals by her son’s other killer.

    Indeed, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins and his staff have fought tirelessly for that closure.

    Isn’t it time?

    http://www.tribtoday.com/opinion/edi...in-boys-death/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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