Widmer already has an appeal pending before the 12th District Court, asking the judges there to throw out his conviction and grant him a new trial.
“I’m going to request that the appellate court consolidate the two appeals so that when we eventually have an oral argument, we can address all the claims at the same time,” she said.
Widmer is serving 15 years to life for drowning his wife, Sarah Widmer, in the bathtub of their Hamilton Twp. home in August 2008. Bronson declared a mistrial after the first guilty verdict in 2009 due to juror misconduct. The second jury was hung in 2010. After 12 hours of deliberations a year ago, a jury returned a guilty verdict.
Berry-Godsey last fall asked Bronson to toss the guilty verdict for a variety of reasons. In an 18-page ruling, Bronson outlined U.S. Supreme Court decisions that dispatch claims the jury should have heard testimony about lead Det. Jeff Braley’s questionable employment history and also declared Widmer’s former lawyers anything but ineffective.
Berry also asserted ineffective assistance of counsel in the original appeal filed last year, as well as improper expert testimony regarding fingerprints on the tub and erroneous jury instructions, among other errors.
She also claimed that because police did not specifically include the bathtub in their search warrants, they should never have seized it as evidence.
The appeals court recently gave prosecutors an extension to file an answer to the first appeal. Prosecutor David Fornshell said their reply brief will be filed in the next couple weeks. He said he had no comment on the second appeal.
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.
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