03 October 2020 :
Jeffrey Hill was released on parole on September 1, 2020, after a ruling by the Ohio parole board granting him early release. Governor Ted Strickland had commuted Hill’s death sentence to 25 years to life on February 12, 2009, following the Ohio Parole Board’s unanimous recommendation that he not be put to death.
Hill was sentenced to death in Hamilton County, Ohio, for killing his mother in 1991 while in a drug-induced rage. Governor Strickland commuted his sentence less than a month before Hill was scheduled to be executed.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported at the time that “Ohio prison officials say it’s the first time an inmate facing death for killing a family member has unanimous backing from his family as he fights execution.” The pardons board unanimously recommended clemency, advising the governor that it “does not consider this offense and offender the ‘worst of the worse’ as in other death penalty cases.” The clemency report urged Strickland to honor the “compelling and unanimous opinion of victim Emma Hill’s family who favor clemency in this case. … They have suffered tremendous loss, and execution would add further to their suffering.”
The board recommended reducing Hill’s sentence to life with parole eligibility after 25 years. It was the first time it had recommended that any death-row prisoner’s sentence be commuted to a sentence less than life without parole. Gov. Strickland accepted the recommendation, citing “the views of the victim’s family, the lack of adequate representation by counsel at Mr. Hill’s sentencing, the remorse demonstrated by Mr. Hill regarding his actions, the lack of proportionality of the sentence of death in this case when compared with similar murder cases, and the expressed views of two justices of the Ohio Supreme Court which reviewed this case on appeal.”
Following a hearing in June 2020, after 27 years in prison, the parole board granted Hill’s application for parole, clearing the way for his release on September 1.
