Court upholds death penalty for triple homicide

The Supreme Court of Ohio today affirmed the death sentence of a man who killed his friend and her two daughters in their North Royalton home in June 2017.

A Supreme Court majority ruled that a Cuyahoga County three-judge panel properly considered the evidence and circumstances and sentenced George Brinkman Jr. to death after he pleaded guilty to murdering Suzanne Taylor and her daughters, Taylor and Kylie Pifer.

A three-judge panel first accepted Brinkman’s guilty pleas to the crimes in 2018 and sentenced him to death. However, on appeal, the Supreme Court vacated the convictions, finding the panel failed to advise Brinkman at the time he entered his guilty pleas that he was waiving his rights to confront the witnesses against him and to have the state prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The case was remanded to the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court for a new proceeding.

In November 2022, Brinkman again pleaded guilty to the crimes, and a new three-judge panel imposed the death penalty. Today, the Court rejected 22 objections, or propositions of law, Brinkman made to his convictions and sentence.

Writing for the Court majority, Justice Patrick F. Fischer stated the Court independently reviewed the aggravating circumstances and mitigating factors when considering Brikman’s sentence. The Court concluded that the aggravating circumstances “undeniably outweigh” the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Brinkman murdered Suzanne and her two daughters in their home, to which he had gained entry under the pretext of his longtime friendship with Suzanne,” Justice Fischer wrote. “After brutally murdering the three women, he fled the scene, and he was taken into custody only after a dramatic eight-hour standoff that placed his friend, as well as law-enforcement officers, in danger.”

Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices R. Patrick DeWine, Joseph T. Deters, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan joined the opinion.

Justice Jennifer Brunner concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority opinion. 

Justice Brunner wrote that she would hold that the three-judge panel abused its discretion when it declined to qualify the two doctors as experts in the fields of pharmacology and neuropsychology. She stated that the three-judge panel’s primary objection was to the substance of what the doctors said and not how they reached their medical conclusions. She stated that the three-judge panel abused its discretion in affording no weight to the doctors’ conclusions that Brinkman’s mental state was significantly impaired at the time of the murders.

Noting the panel’s additional reasoning that the doctors had only reviewed Brinkman’s records and not personally examined him, Justice Brunner cautioned that the majority opinion would disrupt the well-settled practice of allowing expert witnesses to base opinions on reviews of records alone. She stated she would uphold Brinkman’s conviction but reverse his death sentences.