The Ohio Supreme Court has denied* Jeff’s motion to remand his case to the trial court. This motion had asked the court to allow all Jeff’s legal challenges to be combined into one.
The court has also declined to accept jurisdiction for Jeff’s appeal regarding newly discovered evidence from the US Department of Justice (forensic hair evidence at Jeff’s trial was flawed).
In the case announcement** about its decision last week, one of the court’s judges, Justice O’Neill, explains that he wishes courts to consider all the evidence relating to Jeff’s case. O’Neill notes that, less than two months after Jeff filed his appeal based on the flawed hair evidence, the Harrison Police Department released to him its full investigatory file on his case (mentioned in Jeff’s motion to remand his case to the trial court). The judge continues:
{¶ 5} These circumstances present a dilemma. Accepting the present appeal would be premature in the sense that we are limited to an incomplete picture of the evidence Wogenstahl has recently discovered. And whatever decision we might come to would be inconsequential if Wogenstahl were eventually granted a new trial based on the evidence in the investigatory file.
{¶ 6} Presuming that this court’s decision not to exercise jurisdiction over this appeal will immediately end this litigation and allow Wogenstahl to start over with a new motion in the trial court, I respectfully concur. __
It is good to know that O’Neill, at least, is considering the possibility of a new trial for Jeff. We trust that the other judges take the same view.
Justice for Jeffrey Wogenstahl 