Duo convicted in Howland murder set for re-sentencing, headed for appeal
Nathaniel “Nate” Jackson will face a re-sentencing hearing before Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Ronald J. Rice late this year or early 2026. His Co-Defendant, Donna Roberts, has also been granted a re-sentencing hearing, pending appeal.
As a result of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in August of 2024, the Nathaniel Jackson death sentence for the 2001 murder of Howland homeowner Robert Fingerhut was remanded for new sentencing because of the judicial bias and a procedural error at sentencing of relevant evidence.
On May 9, 2025, Sixth Circuit Judges Raymond M. Kethledge, Amul R. Thapar and Chad A. Readler, bound by the Jackson decision, ruled in favor of Roberts in a federal habeas corpus action.
The late Common Pleas Judge John Stuard presided over the two death penalty trials involving both Jackson and Roberts.
In 19 recorded phone conversations and nearly 300 hundred letters exchanged between Jackson and Roberts while Jackson was in prison, the two concocted the scheme to kill Fingerhut. Two days after Jackson was released from prison, he and Roberts carried out that plan, breaking into the Howland home where Jackson ambushed Fingerhut before fatally shooting him.
Initially, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered that both defendants be re-sentenced, which was done by the trial. In both cases, the Ohio Supreme Court found that the Trumbull County re-sentencing, for both Jackson and Roberts, was fair, and it upheld re-imposition of both death sentences. However, the federal courts disagreed and ordered both Jackson and Roberts to be re-sentenced.
It is emphasized that all courts, both federal and state, found that Jackson and Roberts were properly convicted by separate juries of aggravated murder and therefore, both defendants must be given life sentences in the event they are not re-sentenced to death.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office appealed both decisions to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, maintaining that the Ohio Supreme Court decisions approving the re-sentencing by Trumbull County Judges in both the Jackson and Roberts cases, were correct.
Because the Jackson federal decision came before the Roberts decision, the three-judge federal panel in Roberts’ case ruled that it was bound by the Jackson decision and ordered a new death penalty sentencing hearing for Roberts. Under the Constitution of the United States, however, decisions by the Court of Appeals of the federal court must be applied in the state system unless the United States Supreme Court takes the case and reverses the lower federal court decision.
Attorney General Dave Yost’s Office of Solicitor General after their review, has decided to appeal the Sixth Circuit’s May 9, 2025 decision in the Roberts’ case.
Currently, Jackson will be brought back to Trumbull County for another sentencing hearing, which is currently scheduled to take place in February of 2026 before Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas Judge Ronald J. Rice.
The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the procedure where a new jury is impaneled to decide whether or not to recommend the imposition of a death sentence after a new mitigation hearing is had where the State is permitted to present its aggravating evidence and each defendant may introduce new mitigation evidence. The final sentencing decision will be made by the sentencing judge.
This re-sentencing procedure, which included hearing testimony from many witnesses again and lasted several days, was followed in a 2017 Cleveland area triple murder case. A three-judge panel again, like the 2021 panel, re-sentencing George Brinkman to death in 2023.