Prosecutor urging courts to drop appeal
Convicted murderer wants judicial review of death sentence.
Warren WASHINGTON, D.C. —
County Prosecutor David Fornshell wants appeals of a Clayton man’s death sentence rejected by both the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Court.
Last week, Fornshell urged the Ohio Supreme Court to reject the sentence appeal of Austin Myers, 24, a Clayton man sentenced to death in Warren County for murdering Justin Back, 18, of Waynesville.
On Monday, Fornshell argued that a writ of certiorari filed by Myers’ lawyers in the U.S. Supreme Court failed to meet standards set by the nation’s highest court.
“This court has already denied certiorari on the same question, and Ohio’s death penalty scheme is constitutional,” Fornshell wrote in his brief in opposition.
On Nov. 29, Fornshell said the motion for reopening filed by Elizabeth Orrick, a former state public defender, failed to raise a “genuine issue.”
In the U.S. Supreme Court, Ohio Public Defender Bethany O’Neill claimed that the high court’s ruling in another death penalty case, Hurst v. Florida, “rendered Ohio’s death penalty scheme unconstitutional.”
Myers was convicted in 2014 of murdering Back, a childhood friend. Back was about to join the U.S. Navy.
Myers became the youngest person on Ohio’s Death Row at the time.
Timothy Mosley, the other Clayton man charged in the case, entered a plea to life in prison without parole and cooperated