COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican Gov. John Kasich on
Wednesday spared a prison inmate set to die later this month for the
killing of a Cleveland produce vendor while rejecting calls that he be
made eligible for parole and possible release.
Kasich’s clemency
decision followed the recommendation a day earlier of mercy for Arthur
Tyler by the Ohio Parole Board, which cited several statements by
Tyler’s co-defendant taking responsibility for the 1983 shooting.
Tyler,
54, was scheduled to die May 28 for the killing of Sander Leach during a
robbery. Leach’s relatives opposed clemency for Tyler.
Kasich
called irregularities in the court proceedings troubling. His decision
commutes Tyler’s sentence to life with no chance of parole.
"Arthur
Tyler’s crime against Sander Leach and his family was heinous, and this
commutation in no way diminishes that," Kasich said in a statement.
Attorneys
for Tyler told the board on April 24 he is innocent and should be
freed. Defense attorney Vicki Werneke said in an email Wednesday she was
hopeful after the parole board report that Tyler "would eventually be
released from prison."
Prosecutors argued Tyler’s sentence should
be changed to life without parole because of questions about his
conviction, though they maintain he fatally shot the produce vendor.
The
case doesn’t meet their office’s current standards for a capital
punishment prosecution, Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor Allan Regas
told the board. He said the office wouldn’t seek the death sentence in
such a case today based on the evidence, which includes what appears to
be a lack of intent to shoot the victim.
A statement from Prosecutor Timothy McGinty called the sentence commutation "a sound decision."

"It achieves justice for the elderly victim, Sander Leach, and for his family," McGinty said.

Tyler’s
first death sentence was overturned by a state appeals court in 1984 on
the basis of poor legal assistance. He was convicted at a second trial
and again sentenced to death.
His co-defendant, Leroy Head,
pleaded guilty for his role in the slaying and was sentenced to life in
prison with parole after 20 years for aggravated murder and seven to 25
years for aggravated robbery, according to court and parole board
records. He was released from prison in 2008.
Head twice made
statements to police that the gun went off while he was struggling with
Leach and that it was he, not Tyler, who was responsible for the
shooting, according to Tyler’s clemency request.
Head recanted
those statements and testified against Tyler at the first trial, saying
Tyler had threatened his family if he explained what happened that day.
Head also testified at Tyler’s second trial.
In later years,
however, Head denied Tyler had ever threatened him and said he testified
at the second trial because a prosecutor threatened to negate his plea
deal, according to Tyler’s parole board filing.
Head also made
several statements to defense attorneys, fellow prisoners and others
that Tyler was not the shooter, according to the clemency request.
Messages
left at a Cleveland phone listing for Head were not returned Wednesday,
nor was one left with his attorney from his original trial.
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