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Home > Blogs > Dayton Courts: Legal and crime news > Archives > 2011 > July > 28 > Entry
Ohio Supreme Court upholds death sentence for man convicted in double homicide
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday affirmed the convictions and death sentence of Duane Short, a Trenton man who killed his estranged wife and her friend.
The Court’s 7-0 decision was written by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.
Short, 43, was convicted of the July 22, 2004 shotgun slayings of Rhonda Short, 31, and Donnie Sweeney, 32, a friend who had assisted Rhonda in moving out of the couple’s home along with two of their three children.
Short admitted at trial that, after searching for several days to discover his wife’s whereabouts, he purchased and sawed off the barrel of a shotgun, took the weapon to his wife’s new residence in Huber Heights and shot and killed her and Sweeney.
During trial, assistant Montgomery County prosecutors claimed Short discovered his wife’s new residence, more than 40 miles from their home in Trenton, through an inquiry to the Dayton Power and Light Co. He shot Sweeney, who was in the backyard, and then Rhonda, who was in the bathroom.
Short returned to the crime scene shortly after the shootings and surrendered to police.
Short was tried before a jury and convicted on all counts in 2006.
During the penalty phase of the trial, Short told Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman that he did not wish to present any mitigation witnesses or evidence to the jury. Following discussion with Short to determine that he understood the purpose of mitigation and that presenting no mitigation evidence in the penalty phase would increase the likelihood of a death sentence, Huffman accepted his waiver.
After the penalty phase, the jury recommended a sentence of death. Short and his attorneys then attempted to present mitigation evidence before the judge sentenced him.
Huffman held that she could consider only the evidence submitted to the jury. She adopted the jury’s recommendation and imposed a sentence of death.
The Supreme Court found that Huffman acted correctly in rejecting the mitigation evidence offered after the second phase was finished. Lanzinger wrote that Short’s reading of the law was unpersuasive.
“Were we to accept it, capital defendants would be entitled to two evidentiary hearings: one before the judge and jury (the penalty phase), and a second before the judge alone,” Lanzinger wrote. “Short fails to explain why the General Assembly would have intended to create such a system. There is no reason to believe that a system of dual evidentiary hearings would make capital sentencing more fair, reliable, or consistent.”
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