Death penalty in murder on state border stands
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Buckeye State has jurisdiction over the death of a 10-year-old girl who was attacked in Ohio but was found dead in Indiana.
By a 5-2 vote, the justices decided that the death penalty case against Jeffrey Wogenstahl can proceed in Ohio. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in the slaying of Amber Garrett of Harrison, a city in Hamilton County that sits on the Ohio-Indiana border. The girl’s body was found in a wooded area 4 miles inside Indiana.
Justice Sharon L. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said it can’t be determined where the murder took place.
However, she wrote, “Ohio can claim jurisdiction if the fatal blow was struck in Ohio, even if she survived long enough to die in Indiana.”
One of the dissenting votes came from Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who said Wogenstahl’s Ohio conviction should be dropped because of a lack of jurisdiction.
“Our duty compels an outcome that is regrettable because of the grief it would cause the family and friends of the victim. But it is an outcome that is necessary to preserve the integrity of the criminal-justice system in Ohio,” O’Connor wrote. Failing to do so, “is a tremendous error and is a disservice to the citizens of Ohio and the victims of violent crime.”
O’Connor said Wogenstahl could be re-tried in Indiana. She was joined in her dissent by Justice William O’Neill, the court’s lone Democrat.
Wogenstahl is on Ohio’s death row, scheduled to be executed April 17, 2019.
His attorneys filed an appeal in 2015 questioning Ohio’s jurisdiction in the case.