Release Date:  March 5, 2007
Contact:  Michael Rushford
(916) 446-0345

The federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hold oral argument Wednesday to reconsider, en banc, a 2006 ruling by one of its three-judge panels which overturned the death sentence of an Ohio murderer.  At issue in the case of Getsy v. Mitchell is the panel’s holding that defendant Getsy’s sentence was unconstitutional because an accomplice, who was tried separately, did not receive the same sentence.

The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has joined the case to encourage the Court to overturn the panel’s ruling.  “There is no constitutional requirement that accomplices to a crime receive the same sentence,” said CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger.  “The panel’s ruling in this case announced a new rule, which is prohibited by both federal law and Supreme Court precedent,” he added.

The case involves the attempted murder-for-hire of Charles Serafino by John Santine, over a dispute involving Serafino’s lawn care business.  Santine was a small-time drug dealer who bragged about his connections with organized crime.  On July 6, 1995, the day he was released from jail for violating probation, Santine hired Jason Getsy and two accomplices to kill Serafino, who lived with his mother in Hubbard, Ohio.  That night, the three men, armed with automatic weapons and handguns, went to the Serafino house.  While one of the accomplices waited outside, Getsy and the other, Richard McNulty, blew out a sliding glass door with gunshots and then shot Charles Serafino as he ran down a hall, wounding him.  When his mother Ann stepped out of her bedroom, Serafino heard one of the assailants say “shoot the bitch” before the pair shot her several times, killing her.  One of the killers found Serafino hiding in a bathroom and shot him in the face.  Severely injured, Serafino played dead until Getsy and McNulty left.  He recovered from his injuries and testified at trial.

Shortly after the murder, Getsy, Santine, and the other two accomplices were arrested based upon statements made to a local police officer by McNulty three weeks earlier, indicating that as soon as he was released from jail, Santine intended to have Serafino killed.  Evidence introduced at Getsy’s trial included testimony from witnesses who overheard the plans for the murder, Getsy bragging about the killing, and Getsy’s confession.  He was subsequently found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death.  Santine was tried separately in another county.  He was convicted of aggravated murder, but the jury did not find him guilty of murder for hire.  He was sentenced to life in prison.

Getsy’s claims of trial and sentencing error were rejected on direct appeal and state habeas corpus.  On federal habeas corpus he made over two dozen error claims, most of which were found by a district judge to be raised in violation of federal procedure.  Getsy’s claim that his sentence was unconstitutional because it was not the same sentence Santine received was rejected as meritless.  Last year, a panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to overturn the District Court and Getsy’s death sentence.  The panel majority announced that the Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Teague v. Lane (won by CJLF), which prohibits the lower federal courts from discovering new rules on habeas corpus, did not prevent this ruling because other Supreme Court decisions suggested that inconsistent verdicts violated the Constitution.

At the request of the Ohio Attorney General, CJLF joined the case, introducing an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief.  The Foundation argues that by announcing that inconsistent verdicts are unconstitutional, the panel has invented a new rule of law.  No Supreme Court precedent supports the panel’s ruling, and decisions by other federal circuits have come to the opposite conclusion.