The man sentenced to die for gunning down Twinsburg Police Officer Joshua Miktarian during a 2008 traffic stop is back in court this week as the Ohio Public Defender seeks to spare him from execution. Ashford Thompson, convicted in the killing, had a hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Summit County Court of Common Pleas over claims that he had a mental defect at the time of the shooting.
Thompson was sentenced to death in 2010 for fatally shooting Miktarian in July 2008, according to Cleveland 19. Miktarian, 33, was shot four times in the head while conducting a traffic stop at Route 91 and Glenwood on July 13, 2008. He remains the only Twinsburg police officer to die in the line of duty, the station reports.
Thompson was expected to appear virtually for Wednesday's proceedings, which were slated to run all day Thursday before resuming next Monday, Nov. 9. The Ohio Public Defender is arguing that Thompson had a mental defect at the time of the shooting and is seeking to have the death penalty removed from his sentence, per the same report.
Doctors on Both Sides Agree on a Diagnosis
The push to take Thompson off death row rests on a relatively new legal avenue in Ohio. Doctors hired by defense attorneys and by prosecutors both concluded that Thompson has a serious mental illness, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. That shared diagnosis is significant because it would make Thompson eligible to have his death sentence commuted to life in prison under state law, the newspaper reported last year.
Under Section 2929.025 of the Ohio Revised Code, a defendant seeking that outcome must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he was diagnosed with a condition specified in the statute and that the condition significantly impaired his capacity at the time of the alleged offense in the manner the law describes.
A Law Born From a National First
Ohio became the first state in the country to enact an exemption from execution for people with severe mental illness, a distinction noted by the Death Penalty Information Center. At least six other death-penalty states have considered similar exemptions in recent years, the center reports, but none had passed one at the time Ohio's law took effect. Since then, Ohio's death row has had nine inmates removed under the mental illness law, according to the Beacon Journal's reporting.
Remembering Officer Miktarian
The hearing arrives against the backdrop of an enduring local tradition. Every year on the anniversary of his death, police officers from across Northeast Ohio gather at the intersection where Miktarian was killed to remember him, Cleveland 19 notes. The outcome of this week's hearing, and whether Thompson's death sentence will ultimately be altered, had not been determined as of Wednesday.
