Your News Now at Five - 07/20/18
Governor Kasich has pushed back the execution date for convicted murderer Cleveland Jackson.
Kasich granted the reprieve today to move the execution date from September 13th of this year to May 29th of 2019. Kasich moved the execution to give his newly appointed legal counsel time to prepare for his clemency hearing before the parole board. His former lawyer withdrew from representing him because they failed to do any work on his clemency before his last scheduled execution date. Jackson will be put to death for the 2002 deaths of 17-year-old Leneshia Williams and 3-year-old Jayla Grant who were killed during a robbery of money and drugs from a Lima apartment.
During the robbery, Jackson and his half-brother, Jeronique Cunningham lined up the eight people inside the apartment and shot them. Grant and Williams died from their injuries. The others were seriously injured.
Jackson's execution was originally set for 2015 before the State of Ohio put a halt to it for three years after problems during an execution in 2014. The family of Leneshia Williams tells Your News Now that they are upset that the execution date continues to move back, because of Jackson's rights in the criminal proceedings, because they say Leneshia had no rights when she was killed by Jackson and Cunningham.
Press Release from Gov. Kasich's Office:
KASICH GRANTS REPRIEVE TO CLEVELAND JACKSON AND COMMUTES SENTENCE OF RAYMOND TIBBETTS
COLUMBUS – Today Gov. John R. Kasich granted a reprieve to delay the execution of Cleveland Jackson and commuted the death sentence of Raymond Tibbetts to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jackson had been scheduled to be executed on September 13, 2018 and Tibbetts on October 17, 2018.
Cleveland Jackson was convicted for the 2002 murder of 17-year-old Leneshia Williams and three-year-old Jayla Grant in Lima. The reprieve will delay his execution until May 29, over the course of the previous four years.2019 to allow his newly appointed legal counsel sufficient time to review the case and properly prepare for his clemency hearing before the Parole Board. Jackson’s previous court-appointed counsel withdrew their representation just four months prior to his initially scheduled execution after admitting that they failed to do any work to prepare his clemency application
Raymond Tibbetts was convicted for the 1997 murders of his wife, Judith Crawford, and the couple’s landlord, Fred Hicks, in Cincinnati. Tibbets’s commutation is being granted as a result of fundamental flaws in sentencing phase of his trial. Specifically, the defense’s failure to present sufficient mitigating evidence, coupled with an inaccurate description of Tibbetts’s childhood by the prosecution, essentially prevented the jury from making an informed decision about whether Tibbetts deserved the death penalty.
