Parole Board Says Governor Should Grant Clemency To Shawn Hawkins

The parole board voted unanimously to suggest that Gov. John Kasich spare the life of convicted killer Shawn Hawkins, who’s set to die by lethal injection on June 14. Hawkins was convicted of robbing and killing two men in a car near Cincinnati in 1989. The board’s report says the seven members feel the evidence points to Hawkins as the shooter of Diamond Marteen and Terrence Richard. But the report says there are troubling issues, such as the roles played by other people, the conflicting statements of witness Henry Brown Jr, and the fact that the jury wasn’t aware that Brown was later convicted of robbing victims in a car using the same caliber handgun. Before the hearing, Hawkins gave a taped interview in which he said he wasn’t a murderer, and capital punishment advocates such as Republican Senator Bill Seitz and former Republican candidate for governor Ken Blackwell wrote to ask for mercy for Hawkins.