Jury considers death penalty case

Jury considers death penalty case
BY JANICE MORSE JMORSE@ENQUIRER.COM

LEBANON – A jury has begun deliberations in an unusual death-penalty case here.
Judge James Flannery sent the case of Timothy Hancock to a Warren County Common Pleas Court jury around 3:20 p.m. today.
In 2001, a different jury found Hancock guilty in the 2000 strangulation of his cellmate, Jason Wagner, at Warren Correctional Institution in Turtlecreek Township.

The original jury’s recommendation of a death sentence was overturned, and a series of appeals stopped short of granting Hancock a new trial.
In what could be Ohio’s first case of its kind, the state Supreme Court said Hancock’s aggravated murder conviction should stand, but a new jury should consider what sentence to recommend for Hancock. There are four possible choices: death, life without parole, life with parole eligibility after 30 years or life with parole eligibility after 25 years.Although Warren County prosecutors argue that the heinousness of the slaying and other factors call for the death penalty, lawyers from the Ohio Public Defender’s Office presented evidence attempting to persuade the jury to spare Hancock’s life.Hancock, 37, is already serving a life sentence for the 1989 robbery and slaying of an elderly woman in Allen County, where he previously lived.