WARREN — The Ohio Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear an appeal filed by Ohio Solicitor General Thomas Elliot Gaiser to review a decision from the 11th District Court of Appeals requiring another hearing on convicted murderer Danny Lee Hill’s Atkins claim.

An Atkins claim is when a person claims to be mentally challenged and ineligible for the death penalty.

A three-judge panel in Trumbull County found Hill guilty of the Sept. 10, 1985, kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of 12-year-old Raymond Fife as the boy was headed to a Boy Scout meeting on the southwest side of Warren in 1986. Hill was later sentenced to death.

For more than 38 years, Hill has had 30 appeals involving both the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office and several different Ohio Attorney Generals’ staff, including the Solicitor General’s Office, in both state and federal court, delaying his executions.

All the appeals ultimately have been found to be without merit.

The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office defended Hill’s aggravated murder conviction and death sentence before both the 11th District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court, including Hill’s initial Atkins claim in Common Pleas Court and appeal before the 11th District Appeals Court a year ago.

Hill’s appointed federal public defenders had previously carried on claims of intellectual disability to the federal district court and repeatedly in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, including before an “en banc” or full panel of all the appellate judges and then to the U.S. Supreme Court.

After years of federal litigation, the State of Ohio’s position, defended by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the Solicitor General, was ultimately upheld by the federal court.

Hill’s disability claim failed and his death sentence was upheld.

The federal public defender’s office took the case to state court proceedings by asking the trial court to reconsider whether Hill should get a new trial.

Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove denied the Hill motion in a 13-page opinion.

Cosgrove noted Hill’s alleged “intellectual disability has been examined and re-examined by this Court in several post-conviction petitions and motions for a new trial which have (previously) been affirmed by the 11th District Court of Appeals.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has twice reviewed (Hill’s) intellectual disability claim about other issues. Hill’s behavior was also examined at length by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals,” Cosgrove added.

11th District Court Judges John Eklund, Matt Lynch and Robert Patton disagreed with Cosgrove’s decision, however, and ordered her to conduct another hearing.

Solicitor Generals Eric Murphy and Benjamin Flowers defended prior county common pleas court decisions relating to Hill’s conviction and sentence in federal court over the past decade in front of the Sixth Circuit panel as well as before the U.S. Supreme Court, on the same issues involved in the current appeal.

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said he was “very pleased” Gaiser has carried on the work of his predecessors with the case.

“It has been our strong opinion that this new order in the Hill case is not supported by established Ohio law,” Watkins said. “The type of claim that Hill is raising for a second time is not permitted unless Hill can demonstrate and the fact finder would agree that he is ‘intellectually disabled’ under the Atkins standard.”

Gaiser argued the court should intervene to correct the appellate court’s error and give the victim’s mother, Miriam Fife, a chance to see justice in her lifetime in his brief arguing that the high court should hear the appeal.

Gaiser noted the 11th District’s error merits further review in the court for multiple reasons, noting reasoning conflicts with decisions of other Ohio appellate courts and deviates from U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The high court should review the case to preserve the General Assembly’s policymaking role as well as the victim’s constitutional right “to proceedings free from unreasonable delay,” he added.

Watkins expressed gratitude for the efforts by the Attorney General and the Solicitor General to get the case before the Ohio Supreme Court to review the 11th District Court of Appeals’ decision and reverse the believed-to-be erroneous decision.

“I want to sincerely thank Attorney General Dave Yost, and Solicitor General Gaiser for joining with me, Charles L. Morrow, chief of my Criminal Division, and Stephen Maher, Special Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, in seeking review and reversal of the recent Hill decision by the 11th District Court regarding Hill’s alleged claim which mandates another hearing on an old claim that has been already finalized.”

Watkins noted he spoke with Miriam Fife Tuesday morning informing her that the Ohio Supreme Court had accepted the state’s appeal.

“As always, she was positive, and she earnestly hopes that her nearly 40-year journey to see this case end and to have justice for Raymond. God only knows I have called Miriam far too many times,” Watkins said.