COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Prosecutors and defense attorneys are both planning to ask the Ohio Parole Board to spare a condemned man who fatally stabbed a Cleveland woman 17 times.
The unusual presentation is scheduled for Monday in Columbus on behalf of death row inmate Billy Slagle.
Attorneys for Slagle, 44, have long argued he deserves mercy because he was just 18 at the time of the slaying and already a chronic alcoholic with a chaotic upbringing.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty announced last week he is asking that Slagle’s sentence be commuted to life without parole using the same arguments.
Slagle is scheduled to die Aug. 7 for killing neighbor Mari Ann Pope in 1986 during a burglary while two children she was watching at the time were home.