The Ohio Parole Board has recommended clemency for Jeffrey Hill, who murdered his own mother and ransacked her home to get money to buy cocaine. Intrafamily murders such as this one have an unusual dynamic in that the victim's family is also the defendant's family. In this case, they were all in favor of clemency, and the Parole Board listed that factor first in its recommendation.

The compelling and unanimous opinion of victim Emma Hill's family who favor clemency in this case. the have suffered tremendous loss, and execution would add further to their suffering. The victim's family favors the possibility of parole release.

The full text is here.  A report by Andrew Welsh-Huggins for AP is here.

We at CJLF consider clemency to be an essential part of the process and generally do not take a position on whether it should be granted in a particular case. We do think that the clemency decision should be made earlier, though, without waiting for federal habeas corpus to run its full course. In this case, much litigation expense could have been saved if this recommendation had been made earlier (assuming the governor agrees).