Former police officer agrees to Alford plea
Jim Barton maintains innocence in wife’s 1995 death.
Former Springboro LEBANON — Police Lt. Jim Barton has maintained his innocence in the 20 years since his wife was murdered, including the 11 years he spent in prison.
On Thursday while awaiting retrial, Barton agreed to a plea deal in which he was found guilty of hiring those responsible for raping and killing his wife, Vickie, in 1995. The agreement — called an Alford plea — allows Barton to continue to assert his innocence but also to be free within 60 days.
The 61-year-old Barton, convicted in 2005 after a cold-case investigation, acknowledged to Judge Michael Gilb on Thursday that he did not want to risk a longer sentence during retrial.
Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell also acknowledged not wanting to take risks.
Fornshell said he agreed to the plea and sentence primarily because of changes in sentencing laws that limited the chance that Barton could have served
additional time if convicted again.
Also, Fornshell said he was concerned about how Gilb would rule on evidence used in the 2005 trial and that Barton’s plea indicated he recognized there was sufficient evidence to convict him.
“That’s not something I believe that would have occurred if we had gone to trial,” he said during a press conference.
Gilb sentenced Barton to 12 years but gave him credit for the time he already has served. Gilb placed Barton on probation for the remaining time in his sentence. There are no conditions of parole.
He has lived at his home in Springboro on house arrest this year since being released from prison after the conviction was overturned and a retrial planned.
Barton entered the Alford plea to complicity to aggravated burglary and involuntary manslaughter.
Afterward, Barton signed up for probation and left the courthouse without commenting. His lawyer, Christopher Pagan, declined comment afterward.
Vickie Barton, a nurse at Sycamore Hospital and instructor at the Kettering School of Medical Arts, was raped and murdered at their home outside Springboro.
At trial, prosecutors said Barton hired two men to burglarize their home, frightening his wife into moving to Springboro, so he could become police chief.
“Prior to that, Mr. Barton had been a model citizen,” Fornshell said during a press conference Thursday.
The case attracted global interest, particularly after it was reopened by a coldcase team, and Barton was indicted 2004. No one else was ever charged in the case.
Fornshell said the terms were worked out “really over the last month” with Pagan.
One of the men alleged to have committed the crimes committed suicide shortly after Barton called 9-1-1 to report her murder. The other suspect has never been identified.
Last year, the case was overturned by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision was largely based on questions about the testimony of a key witness. The court also found prosecutorial misconduct related to evidence that wasn’t turned over to the defense.
The trial judge has retired, and neither prosecutor in the trial works for Fornshell.
“The evidence was predominantly the same,” Fornshell said, acknowledging he was concerned about how the time passing would affect the memory of his other witnesses. “This was a cold case when it was tried,” he said.