CLEVELAND — The Northern Ohio District Court has granted a certificate of appealability allowing the Sixth Circuit United States Court of Appeals to determine whether Maple Heights killer, Denny Obermiller’s death sentence should be vacated.
Obermiller pleaded guilty to handcuffing and strangling his grandparents in their Maple Heights home. Obermiller was accused of raping his grandmother before her body was found days later, next to used condoms.
Court documents show that Obermiller pleaded guilty in 2011 to 17 violent crimes. These included aggravated murder, kidnapping, rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated theft, burglary, attempted aggravated arson and tampering with evidence.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld Obermiller's death sentence in 2016.
In a more than 100-page opinion released this week, Northern Ohio District Court Judge John Adams denied all of Obermiller’s appeals.
Judge Adams, however, granted the certificate of appealability for some of Obermiller’s appeals, allowing the Sixth Circuit United States Court of Appeals to decide if the court erred in the denial of appeal.
These grounds for relief include Obermiller’s right to represent himself, his competence to enter guilty pleas and waive his right to a jury trial and relating to his competency to waive his right to present mitigation evidence at trial. Judge Adams explained that a reasonable jurist could debate the Court’s conclusion, the denial, regarding Obermiller’s claims.
