Convicted bathtub killer appeals to Ohio Supreme Court

Convicted bathtub killer Ryan Widmer has taken his fight for a fourth trial to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The 12th District Court of Appeals denied his first appeal and is still considering his second appeal. Widmer’s attorney, Michele Berry-Godsey, filed her intent to appeal to the high court on Wednesday.

In the first appeal, Berry-Godsey’s stance was that police improperly seized the bathtub because they did not specifically name it in the search warrant they obtained for the house on Crested Owl Court. She also said when authorities ripped the fixture out of bathroom, they violated Widmer’s Fourth Amendment rights.

The opinion, penned by Judge Robert Hendrickson, found the bathtub to be the “instrument of the crime,” giving police the right to procure it.

“We find that police had probable cause to associate the bathtub, and the markings found therein, as the instrument used to drown Sarah,” he wrote. “Because the bathtub was believed to have been used to cause Sarah’s death, the bathtub, by its very nature, became an instrument of the crime and subject to seizure.”

In a 15-page memorandum in support of the high court hearing the case, Berry-Godsey said the court should take the opportunity to clarify the law on searches and seizures.

“Never has this court or any other court in Ohio (including the federal courts) permitted the seizure of real property without specific court authorization,” she wrote. “Here, that is precisely what the 12 District has authorized, thereby eviscerating the fourth amendment’s particularity and reasonableness requirements and contradicting 200 years of fourth amendment jurisprudence.”

Berry-Godsey also raised the issue of what she called “junk science” — a fingerprint expert who testified during all three trials and former mystery witness Jennifer Crew. The Iowa woman testified in the third trial that Widmer confessed his crime to her during a drunk call in October 2009. If that witness is to be believed, she said, Widmer is guilty of a lesser offense, because the act wasn’t intentional.

“In light of Crew’s testimony, a rational trier of fact must conclude that the state’s evidence establishes only involuntary manslaughter or reckless homicide,” she wrote, because Crew’s testimony was he killed Sarah accidentally in a fit of rage.

Those crimes, depending on the circumstances, carry zero to three-year prison terms — Widmer is already been behind bars for 19 months — or three to 10 years.

Prosecutor David Fornshell said he is confident the case they made will stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny, if the court takes jurisdiction.

“I don’t anticipate the Supreme Court is going to grant jurisdiction, and even if it does, I feel like the court of appeals, like the trial court, was on solid legal ground for the decisions they made,” he said. “It’s another step in the process. I don’t think there is any legitimate chance that the outcome will change.”

The second appeal in the case centers around former lead detective Jeff Braley, but Berry touched on his apparent dishonesty in the first appeal as well. The judges said Judge Neal Bronson was not wrong to disallow evidence of Braley lying on a 14-year-old job application.

The Supreme Court only accepts about 7 percent to 12 percent of discretionary appeals filed. Widmer’s father, Gary, has said he thinks his son has a better chance of getting a new trial at the federal court level.

Widmer is serving a 15-year to life sentence for the 2008 drowning death of his wife, Sarah. The first trial in 2009 ended in a mistrial over juror misconduct. The second jury was hung and a third jury found him guilty in 2011.

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