(WKBN) — A Trumbull County woman who has been sitting on death row since 2003 for the murder of her husband has lost another appeal.
Donna Roberts, who is the only woman on Ohio’s death row, had her latest appeal rejected this week in federal court.
Roberts has been challenging the constitutionality of her conviction and sentence. She alleges, among other things, that there were violations during the penalty phase of her trial saying that mitigating circumstances were not weighed.
She also alleges that the trial court did not remove biased jurors, challenged the evidence, and said that pretrial publicity impacted the case. She also claimed that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Roberts has been jockeying between state and federal court in her appeals, challenging past rulings and appeal rejections.
Roberts was convicted in connection to the shooting death of her husband Robert Fingerhut inside the couple’s Howland home. The triggerman was Robert’s lover Nathaniel Jackson with whom she had been having an affair and plotted the murder. Jackson is also on death row.
Fingerhut was a Valley businessman and ran the Greyhound bus station.
Roberts and Jackson plotted to kill Fingerhut for insurance money.
Ohio currently has a moratorium on the death penalty due to the inability to obtain drugs for lethal injection.
