Ohio court reaffirms death sentence for Sandusky man

SANDUSKY — A state court upheld the death sentence of a Sandusky man who killed a mother and her two young children.The Ohio Supreme Court Thursday reaffirmed the 2012 conviction of Curtis Clinton, 46, for the rape and murder of Heather Jackson and her children. It ruled "these are horrific crimes that lack any mitigating features," according to court documents."I'm pleased but not surprised," Erie County prosecutor Kevin Baxter said. "The evidence and the law supported the conviction and sentencing."Clinton is incarcerated in the Chillicothe Correctional Institution until his execution date of Sept. 15, 2021. But Baxter expects Clinton to make more appeals that could eventually take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court."We've got a long way to go yet, but this is a big step," Baxter said.Clinton could motion for post-conviction relief and argue a constitutional right was denied. When he moved through the trial courts in Ohio he might appeal to the federal government through a writ of habeas corpus to motion his imprisonment as unlawful.Original CaseIn 2012, Clinton strangled Heather Jackson, 23, her daughter, Celina, 3, and her infant son, Wayne, to death inside their home.Forensic evidence suggested Jackson and her daughter also were raped. Police arrested Curtis after surveillance footage showed he was the only person to go into their home at the time of their deaths, according to court documents.Officers collected DNA from Clinton that matched evidence found on the victims. Detectives investigated Curtis at the same time for the rape and choking of a 17-year-old girl days before the murders.Common pleas Judge Tygh Tone sentenced Clinton to death after an Erie County jury found him guilty of three counts each of murder and rape in 2013.The AppealClinton listed 23 errors he believed the court made when he appealed his conviction and death sentence, but his arguments focused on two main complaints:• The decision to join the 17-year-old girl's rape and the murders into one trial• The inclusion of his 1997 manslaughter conviction for the homicide of Misty Keckler into evidence.Clinton contended the girl's rape and Jackson's murder were unrelated and shouldn't have been joined together. The court disagreed, ruling the cases "shared enough common features" to combine the cases and admit evidence from both."They believed the victim's testimony may bias the jury and the two cases should be separated," Baxter said.The court also denied his argument that the intermingling charges confused the jury since they were capable of separating the evidence of multiple charges.The prosecution also included into evidence Clinton's manslaughter conviction for the death of Misty Keckler. They argued the similar nature of both crimes showed a method of operation that helped prove Clinton murdered Jackson and her children.Clinton disagreed on the grounds Keckler's "strangulation was not distinctive enough to identify him" as the Jackson family's murderer, according to court documents.The court decided Keckler's killing shared enough similarity to Jackson's death to admit it as evidence of a method of operation and its value should be left to the jury.But the trial court should have told the jury Keckler's homicide couldn't be used as evidence in the children's murder because fewer similarities existed, according to court documents.The justices decided, however, the error was harmless because other testimonies and forensic evidence were enough to prove Clinton murdered the children, court documents stated.Clinton also claimed the jury wasn't impartial because of the publicity of the case, however, the court declared a jury doesn't need to be completely ignorant of the case and the exclusion of prospective jurors for perceived bias showed the trial court ensured a fair trial.Reach reporter Michael Harrington at michaelharrington@sanduskyregister.com, follow the Register at Facebook.com/SanduskyRegisterFILE PHOTO, Curtis Clinton appears in Erie County Common Pleas Court on Sept. 27, 2012.