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Thread: Tyrone L. Noling - Ohio Death Row

  1. #11
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Wow! It doesn´t happen often that I want a DR inmate to get his sentence commuted (I think the last time was Foster in Texas), but at this time I think it´s about time to consider releasing him. I think it´s better to release him sooner than later for two reasons. First you shouldn´t steal any person's lifetime for nothing and second it will be very expensive if a court releases him and he gets money for the time he was behind bars. If there are difficulties with the law, maybe it'll be possible for the governor to commute his sentence and in exchange he'll agree not to seek any money from the state.

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    High court will review conviction in Portage murder

    The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to review convicted killer Tyrone L. Noling’s conviction in the 1990 double murder of an Atwater couple.

    The state’s highest court has accepted Noling’s appeal for review. Now 39, Noling was convicted in 1996 of the murders of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81, who were found shot to death in their home on Moff Road on April 5, 1990. Noling’s three co-defendants, who pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified against him, have since recanted their statements implicating him in the killings.

    The ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court does not guarantee Noling a new trial, only that the court has accepted jurisdiction over the case. Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci said Thursday the decision is not unusual, as appeals in death penalty cases go directly to that court, bypassing lower appeals courts.

    “They don’t have to take every case. They said only they would hear it. It’s only an acceptance of jurisdiction to hear the case, and they’re not making any decision on the merits” of Noling’s appeal, Vigluicci said.

    In March, Portage County Common Pleas Judge John Enlow denied Noling’s request for a new trial, saying he was not improperly prevented from finding evidence prior to his 1995 trial. Noling’s attorneys argued he should receive a new trial because Portage County authorities withheld alleged eyewitness evidence that could have exonerated him, and requested further testing of a cigarette butt found in the Hartigs’ driveway.

    Vigluicci’s office opposed new tests on the cigarette butt because tests revealed it did not contain DNA from Noling or any of his three co-defendants.

    “Noling went through this entire claim for DNA years ago. It went through the trial court and the supreme court and he lost, it was denied,” he said. “We tested that cigarette butt. It was tested before trial, it was tested and excluded any defendants in that case.”

    Vigluicci said the cigarette butt is, in fact, irrelevant to Noling’s appeal because it was in a public area and “could have been flicked or placed there by anyone driving by the road. It’s not a relevant piece of evidence. That was sustained all along by the trial court and the supreme court.”

    Noling’s attorneys also have suggested a fifth man, Rootstown High School graduate and Edinburg resident Daniel E. Wilson, may have killed the Hartigs. He was executed in June 2009 for the 1991 murder of an Amherst woman.

    Noling’s attorneys say newly uncovered evidence includes a claim by Wilson’s foster brother, Nathan Chesley, that Wilson told Chesley he killed the Hartigs. Blood evidence has not excluded Wilson as a suspect, according to Noling’s attorneys.

    Vigluicci said he places “no credibility whatsoever” in the theory of Wilson as an alternative suspect in the murders.

    Furthermore, Noling’s claim to have “evidence of the mysterious and deceptive efforts taken by another set of alternative suspects to conceal a missing .25-caliber handgun,” according to a 44-page appeal filed with the 11th District Court of Appeals in Warren. That court will hear additional arguments relating to Noling’s claims at a hearing set for January 2012, according to court records.

    Vigluicci said trial courts and appeals courts, including a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, have denied all of Noling’s appeals to this point.

    “It’s just another red herring that has just been recently trumped up again to further delay this,” he said. Noling’s attorneys are “using these repeated motions for the same thing merely for the purpose of delaying the execution.”

    http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/5112609

  3. #13
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    Court to weigh DNA testing for condemned Ohio man

    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court plans to hear arguments in the case of a condemned inmate whose attorneys argue DNA testing could help exonerate him.

    At issue is the case of death row prisoner Tyrone Noling, convicted in 1996 of fatally shooting an elderly Portage County couple at their home.

    The Supreme Court on Monday scheduled a Jan. 8 hearing for arguments from both sides.

    Lawyers for the Ohio Innocence Project want to test a cigarette butt found at the scene against DNA profiles of offenders in a national database, including a convicted killer who was executed.

    The state says previous tests have excluded Noling as the smoker of the butt and says new testing would prove nothing.

    A lower court judge has twice denied the request.

    http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/...a-testing.html

  4. #14
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    Ohio Supreme Court To Hear Death Row DNA Case

    The Ohio Supreme Court plans to hear arguments in the case of a condemned inmate whose attorneys argue DNA testing could help exonerate him.

    At issue is the case of death row prisoner Tyrone Noling, convicted in 1996 of fatally shooting an elderly Portage County couple at their home.

    The Supreme Court plans Tuesday to hear arguments from both sides.

    Lawyers for the Ohio Innocence Project want to test a cigarette butt found at the scene against DNA profiles of offenders in a national database, including a convicted killer who was executed.

    The state says previous tests have excluded Noling as the smoker of the butt and says new testing would prove nothing.

    A lower court judge has twice denied the request.

    http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/...-dna-case.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Noling's petition for writ of certiorari was DENIED.

    Linked with 11A257
    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #16
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    THE STATE OF OHIO v NOLING

    In today's opinions, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a trial court must consider current versions of statutes in ruling on an inmate’s application for new DNA testing of biological material in a death penalty case.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #17
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Article

    Death row inmate Tyrone Noling can request new DNA test

    The Ohio Supreme Court has cleared the way for a death-row inmate to request additional DNA testing on a cigarette butt that he hopes will clear him of a 23-year-old double homicide in Portage County.

    The high court, citing a 2010 amendment to state law that allows for limited retesting of DNA -- ordered a trial court to consider Tyrone Noling's request for additional testing of the cigarette butt.

    Prior testing of saliva on the butt, which was found in the driveway of murder victims Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig in 1990, determined that Noling was not the source of the DNA.

    Noling, who was convicted of the murders, wants to retest the evidence in light of advanced procedures that could determine if another man's DNA is present in the saliva.

    In 2008, a court refused to order retesting of the cigarette butt because Ohio law at the time prevented DNA from being retested if a prior test produced "definitive" evidence. The court determined that the test that ruled out Noling and his co-defendants as the source of the DNA was such a test.

    Ohio lawmakers rewrote the law in 2010 to allow retesting for new information that could identify the true culprit.

    Noling applied for a new test later that year, but it was denied by the court in 2011.

    http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index...ne_noling.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #18
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Editorial

    Test for the truth

    In May, the Ohio Supreme Court opened the door to new DNA testing in the case of Tyrone Noling. A 5-2 majority reversed a lower court decision and sent the question to Judge John Enlow of the Portage County Common Pleas Court. Earlier this month, attorneys for Noling filed a motion asking the court to permit testing of additional evidence. The request makes sense — if the objective is justice, or at least addressing the mounting doubt about the Noling conviction.

    A jury found Noling guilty of the 1990 killings of Cora and Bearnhardt Hartig in their house in Atwater Township. He has resided on death row the past 17 years. The indictment of Noling didn’t come until five years after the episode, described by prosecutors as a robbery that turned into murder. Key to the conviction was the testimony of three friends of Noling at the scene.

    They long ago recanted, citing coercion by the prosecution. On their own, these reversals might be played down. Striking is how they fit into a pattern, the case against Noling having eroded so substantially. Noling and his friends were involved in earlier robberies in Alliance. At the Hartig house, there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. Nothing was taken from the house. If many in prison proclaim their innocence, know further that Noling’s gun didn’t match the murder weapon. He passed a polygraph test.

    Four years ago, attorneys for Noling learned through a public records request about an alternative suspect. The information wasn’t shared at the trial. Yet the person in question lived near the Hartigs and eventually murdered a young woman. He received a death sentence and was executed.

    Noling wants to apply the more sophisticated DNA testing of today to a cigarette butt found on the driveway. (He already has been excluded.) A search for the truth requires such a step. So does state law, the legislature in 2010 expanding the concept of a “definitive” DNA test.

    As the Supreme Court stressed, a test must be performed if it hasn’t been conducted yet and the outcome could be “determinative,” or likely change the result of a trial. Find the presence of an alternative suspect, including a second possibility, an insurance agent for the Hartigs who refused to take a polygraph, and that surely would be the result. It would be especially so in view of the collapsing case of the prosecution on other fronts.

    Logic follows: If the cigarette butt is tested, then a jewelry box and shell casings should be tested, too. The prosecution has argued that both were touched by the killer. Recent advances in DNA testing make possible gaining decisive evidence from each item. An opportunity exists to clear up the many uncertainties about whether Tyrone Noling murdered the Hartigs. More, the state must take necessary care to ensure that Ohio avoids the grievous mistake of executing an innocent man.

  9. #19
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Death row inmate Noling wins new DNA tests of cigarette evidence in 1990 double murder

    By Ed Meyer
    The Beacon Journal

    Portage County Common Pleas Judge John Enlow has ordered new DNA tests of potentially decisive crime scene evidence in the case of death row inmate Tyrone Noling.

    Enlow’s ruling Thursday morning was a significant victory for Noling.

    It moved the case forward on a defense assertion by the Ohio Innocence Project that he was not the killer in a 1990 double murder in Atwater Township, but Noling’s lawyers came prepared for a full evidentiary hearing on the evidence.

    Four nationally recognized experts, in the fields of DNA testing, false confessions by state witnesses and cold-case criminal investigations, were waiting to testify but now must wait until the test results are revealed.

    Enlow ordered the new DNA tests on a cigarette butt found in the driveway at the home of the elderly victims, Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig.

    His order calls for the tests to be done by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

    Any positive results then will be sent to the FBI lab for comparison to the genetic profiles of known criminals in the agency’s computerized database — the Combined DNA Index System known as CODIS.

    Enlow told attorneys from both sides that until the test results are known, proceeding with a full evidentiary hearing would be like “shooting in the dark.”

    Such DNA test results often take months to complete.

    Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci had opposed advanced DNA testing of the cigarette butt in his Ohio Supreme Court arguments last January.

    He said then that even if new tests were granted, results would be meaningless. Initial DNA testing of the cigarette butt was brought out at Noling’s 1996 jury trial, Vigluicci argued, and it excluded him as the contributor.

    But that was not his position at Thursday’s hearing.

    Vigluicci said he already had made a previous “offer” to the defense to have the cigarette butt tested by BCI.

    He said BCI scientists are “eminently qualified” to extract DNA samples in order to determine whether there is enough genetic material present, a process called “quantification,” to present to the FBI for analysis.

    Noling’s lead trial attorney, Carrie Wood of the Ohio Innocence Project, argued for the tests to be done by Orchid Cellmark, one of the oldest and most experienced DNA labs in the nation. She told Enlow the Innocence Project would pay for the tests to be done there.

    Cellmark was the lab used in the process that led to Clarence Elkins winning his freedom after he was wrongly convicted in a 1998 Summit County murder case.

    Wood told Enlow that Cellmark has the most sophisticated equipment in the nation, and that if the defense has only one chance to test the cigarette butt, “we should do it thoroughly and we should do it correctly.”

    Afterward, outside of court, Wood said there are concerns if BCI finds only a miniscule DNA sample in the cigarette butt.

    “What we want is the best chance to get a result and find the perpetrator’s DNA,” Wood said. “Unfortunately, the court’s order today doesn’t do that. While it moves the case forward, it doesn’t get the most advanced information.”

    Noling, 41, was present at the hearing in prison clothes and shackles but did not make any comments in open court.

    Retired veteran detective James Trainum, who was involved in more than 100 homicide investigations for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., spent 13 of his 27 years there in its Major Case/Cold Case Unit.

    He was waiting to testify about the evidentiary importance of the cigarette butt, but Enlow’s ruling pre-empted his testimony.

    Trainum declined to comment on his findings, but did submit a 12-page affidavit for the court record.

    It challenges a prosecution claim that the cigarette butt simply could have been flicked into the victims’ driveway by someone unrelated to the crime.

    However, in his report, Trainum said the victims’ home is on a rural road, with the closest neighbor’s driveway more than 200 feet east of the Hartig home.

    “The distance from the road to the Hartigs’ garage,” Trainum went on to report, “is approximately 116 feet, meaning that the cigarette butt was found over 100 feet from the roadway.”

    Reports by all four of the defense’s expert witnesses are available at www.tyronenoling.com.

    The Innocence Project’s headline for the website is: “Innocent on Death Row: A Case of Murder and Injustice in Portage County, Ohio.”

    Enlow also ordered a BCI evaluation of several shell casing and ring boxes found at the crime scene that investigators believe were touched by the perpetrator.

    http://www.ohio.com/news/death-row-i...urder-1.453680

  10. #20
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    25 years later, Atwater murder case, conviction still generate controversy

    By DAVE O'BRIEN
    The Record-Courier

    More than 25 years after an elderly Atwater couple were found shot to death in their home following what appeared to be a botched robbery, controversy continues to surround the conviction of a man sitting on Ohio's death row for the crime.

    Tyrone L. Noling, now 43, has been on death row since 1996, when he was convicted of aggravated murder in the deaths of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig, both 81 years old, who were found shot to death in their home in the 6500 block of Moff Road on April 7, 1990.

    The Portage County Coroner's Office estimated the Hartigs had been dead for two days before their bodies were found. Both had been shot multiple times with a .25-caliber handgun.

    Noling, then 18, was a suspect in several prior home invasion robberies in nearby Stark County in the week prior to the murders. He reportedly was armed and pointed weapons at the victims in those incidents, but did not shoot anyone.

    The state Public Defender's Office and Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati College of Law have been arguing in Noling's defense for several years.

    Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci said Noling's attorneys have put up "an endless string" of delay tactics and "red herrings" in their client's defense over the years. "We have vowed to continue to fight for the imposition of the death penalty in this case, and we'll do that as long as it takes," he said.

    Noling was indicted for the Hartigs' murder in 1992, while he was serving a prison sentence at the Southern Correctional Institution for burglary. His initial trial date in 1993 was postponed and he was not convicted until three years later. He has filed repeated appeals and seen several execution dates come and go.

    Numerous factors appear to aid Noling's defense.

    Noling's three alleged accomplices, Joey Dalesandro, Gary St. Clair and Butch Wolcott, were identified as suspects by the Portage County Sheriff's Office early on in the case. Called to testify against Noling, they have all since recanted their statements that Noling shot the Hartigs, or got on the witness stand and denied that he did so.

    St. Clair, now 46, continues to serve a sentence of 20 years to life in prison for aggravated murder in the Hartig case. He testified for the prosecution at Noling's 1996 trial, and dropped a bombshell: Neither he, nor Noling, were at the Hartigs on the day of their murder. Noling was convicted despite that testimony.

    Dalesandro was convicted of related charges, served 11 years in prison and was released in 2003. Wolcott, who was 15 at the time of the murders, received immunity for his testimony.

    Both have told other media outlets they were fed a story by investigators and coerced into repeating it in court.

    Noling has long sought DNA testing on a cigarette butt found near the Hartig residence. Earlier testing excluded Noling and his co-defendants as sources of DNA on the cigarette butt.

    In 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court recommended new testing on the cigarette. Portage County Common Pleas Judge John Enlow ordered the cigarette butt re-tested for DNA following a December 2013 court hearing, but it did not return any hits in the state DNA database, according to Vigluicci and court records.

    Noling's attorneys sought DNA testing on other items, including shell casings and some of the victims' property, in the hopes it might point to different suspects. No testimony was ever given that Noling was in the Hartigs' bedroom, but jewelry boxes from there were seized as evidence by investigators.

    Part of the state's argument against further scientific testing is that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation "determined those items were so contaminated, back in 1990 when this crime occurred, when the case was investigated" that there is little chance any DNA from a suspect would remain on them, Vigluicci said.

    DNA testing was "practically unknown" in 1990, and "the protocols for handling evidence were not the ones we have now," he said. "Sterile gloves were not used, items were placed in the same (evidence) bag. They are not able to be tested for DNA because of that, were contaminated by officers holding them, and writing on them."

    Noling's attorneys countered that they wished to have a private lab test the items for DNA, because the Ohio BCI did not have all the necessary equipment to do so, according to court records.

    Vigluicci said former Portage County Common Pleas Judge John Enlow denied Noling's application for further DNA testing last year. Noling's attorneys appealed the ruling to the 11th District Court of Appeals in Warren as well as the Ohio Supreme Court.

    He said he expects the Supreme Court "will probably end up taking a look at" the appeal, as appeals in death penalty cases go directly to the high court, he said.

    In addition, the murder weapon has never been recovered. A handgun of the same caliber seized from Noling, one he stole during a previous robbery in Alliance, turned out not to have been used to shoot the Hartigs.

    A phone message seeking comment on the case was left for Noling's public defender.

    A witness, Nathan Chesley, came forward for a second time several years ago claiming his foster brother, Daniel E. Wilson, admitted to him that he committed the Hartig murders.

    Wilson, a 20-year-old Rootstown High School graduate, was living in nearby Edinburg at the time, and allegedly threatened to harm Chesley if he told anyone what Wilson allegedly said one night while intoxicated.

    Chesley reported the statement to Southeast school officials, who called the Portage County Sheriff's Office. However, it is not clear if the tip was ever followed up.

    Convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 1984 death of an 81-year-old Elyria man during an attempted robbery, Wilson later was convicted of aggravated murder for locking Carol Lutz, 24, alive in her car trunk, then setting it on fire after she drove him home from a bar in Lorain County on May 4, 1991. Wilson was executed by lethal injection in June 2009.

    Another potential suspect was Bearnhardt Hartig's insurance agent, Lewis Lehman. Hartig allegedly told his doctor he was angry Lehman had defaulted on a $10,000 personal loan the couple gave him, and was planning to confront him.

    Lehman, who at one point had owned a .25-caliber handgun but claimed he had sold it to an "unknown individual," died in 1998, according to a September 2003 article on Noling's case in Cleveland Scene magazine.

    http://www.the-review.com/local%20ne...te-controversy

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