Grate jury considers death penalty in sentencing phase

ASHLAND – The same jury that found Shawn Grate guilty of aggravated murder last week returned to Ashland County Common Pleas Court Friday to determine Grate’s fate.

The jury’s charge is to weigh the aggravating circumstances in the murders of Elizabeth Griffith and Stacey Stanley against mitigating circumstances presented by the defense during Friday’s proceedings.

Jurors first heard from Grate’s half sister, Barb Charter, who testified that she essentially raised Grate for several years when she was between the ages of 12 and 16. He was about eight years her junior. 

Charter described a home environment that lacked love and nurturing and said her mother, who is also Grate’s mother, was young and did not give her three children much attention.

From an early age, Charter testified, Grate would act out when he did not get his own way. 

Charter described a constant battle between Grate and his mother over “who was going to be in control — him or her.”

She described one instance in which Grate’s mother had just had new carpet installed and Grate wanted a sandwich but his mother told him he had to wait. Grate, who was about 2 at the time, squirted mustard on the new carpet. 

Another time, when Grate was upset that he had to wear a cast on his arm, he removed the cast several times, according to Charter’s testimony.

Charter said Grate had dyslexia and was held back in kindergarten and again in first grade. He was put on “the short bus,” which deeply upset him, she said. 

Charter also described how, when Grate was 11 years old, his mother left and moved to Kentucky, leaving Grate with his father. Charter stated that their mother took all of Grate’s things with her and left while he was at school. 

In cross-examining Charter, prosecutor Chris Tunnell emphasized that she has remained employed through most of her adult life and is in a successful marriage, despite the circumstances in which she and her brother grew up. 

After Charter’s testimony, the jury heard from John Fabian, a neuropsychologist who evaluated Grate and prepared a mitigation report for the defense. 

Fabian testified that after 25 tests and about 25 hours with Grate, Fabian diagnosed Grate with persistent depressive disorder, unspecified bipolar and related disorders, a specified trauma and stressor related disorder resulting from complex childhood trauma, a language learning disorder, borderline intellectual functioning, mild neurocognitive disorder due to traumatic brain injury, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cannabis use disorder and personality disorder with anitisocial, schizotypical, achizoid, borderline and narcissistic traits.

Fabian said Grate expressed disdain for his mother and reported early fantasies of wanting to kill her, and wanted to take her out of her misery. 

The neuropsychologist said Grate’s IQ is 83, putting him in the 13th percentile. That means if 100 people were to take an IQ test, approximately 87 would score higher than Grate. 

“In my opinion, his brain’s not working right,” Fabian said. “As an analogy, if a car has four wheels, we’ve got about three.”

Fabian testified Grate admitted to being “pretty dangerous” and expressed a desire to continue killing people, even in prison. 

Grate also told Fabian, “I guess I’m ready to go ahead and get my lethal injection.”

Special prosecutor Mark Weaver questioned the validity of several of Fabian’s diagnoses using arguments from definitions found in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“The bottom line is, he’s very impaired,” Fabian said. 

In closing arguments, defense attorney Robert Whitney restated facts from the earlier portions of the trial and questioned why someone would keep the bodies of women he killed “like trophies from some big African safari hunt.”

“You might ask yourself deep down inside whether the actions of Shawn Grate are those of someone which you would consider a normal person?” Whitney said. 

Whitney told jurors the state wanted them to act as medical doctors and sign a prescription for two lethal injections. 

“Putting Shawn Grate to death will add a third corpse to this case,” Whitney said, adding that he believes life in prison without parole would be an adequate sentence.”

“A death sentence will solve nothing,” Whitney said. “That would just be another murder.”

Tunnell rebutted Whitney’s statements by saying that describing a death penalty sentence as murder is offensive to the jurors, the court and the state. 

“Here’s the key difference between murder and law. It’s called due process,” Tunnell said.

Tunnell also noted Grate has had due process in this trial. He went on to tell jurors that if they find the aggravating circumstances of the crime outweigh mitigating factors, the law requires they impose the death penalty. 

Tunnell argued Charter’s testimony was not particularly mitigating and therefore was worth little to the jury.

Fabian’s diagnoses of Grate and Fabian’s testimony, Tunnell argued, were not significant enough to hold much weight against the aggravating circumstances in the case.

“After 25 tests and 26 hours with this defendant, what did we learn?” Tunnell said. “Well, he didn’t like to ride the short bus, so he’s depressed. He might have some sort of mood disorder, maybe. His language skills are flawed. He smokes weed. He’s antisocial, and he self-reports mommy issues.”

Tunnell said he believes these things will be far outweighed by the other circumstances in the case. 

They jury has been given four options — 25 years to life, 30 years to life, life in prison without parole and the death penalty.

The jury began deliberating around 5 p.m. and was instructed they may deliberate until 8:30 p.m. Friday. If they do not reach unanimous verdicts by then, they will be sequestered overnight and will continue deliberations Saturday.