By John Futty, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – The widow of Columbus Police Officer Steven Smith wept on the shoulder of their son Thursday as a Franklin County jury returned verdicts that made the officer’s killer eligible for the death penalty.
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Lincoln S. Rutledge, 45, was convicted of purposely killing Smith during a SWAT standoff after barricading himself inside his Clintonville apartment on April 10, 2016.
The jurors will return to Common Pleas Court on Monday for a hearing at which the defense will present mitigating factors in hopes of convincing them to recommend a life sentence rather than death.
The jury deliberated for about 16 hours over three days before finding Rutledge guilty of aggravated murder in Smith’s shooting death. Jurors found that Rutledge knew he was shooting at a law-enforcement officer, was attempting to kill two or more people and that he committed the crime to escape detection or apprehension. Each of those findings, known as specifications, makes him eligible for a death sentence.
If the jury decides that death isn’t the appropriate penalty, they must recommend a sentence of life in prison without parole or life with a chance of parole after 25 or 30 years.
A Franklin County jury hasn’t recommended a death sentence since 2003.
The officer’s son, Jesse Smith, came to court from the Columbus Police Academy, where he is a member of the recruit class that will graduate as officers in July. Dressed in his recruit uniform, he sat in the second row behind the prosecution and comforted his mother, Lisa Smith, in the packed courtroom.
Officer Smith, 54, was a 27-year veteran of the police force.