Butler County spent thousands of taxpayer dollars prosecuting Daniel French for the 2012 murder of 87-year-old Barbara Howe of Monroe. Prosecutors scored the conviction they were seeking in the death penalty case on Nov. 5, but a jury of seven women and five men spared French’s life, recommending instead a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. It was the same outcome French’s attorneys offered to prosecutors in the form of a plea deal before the 11-day trial began, which has raised the question: Was the trial a wise use of tax dollars? Prosecutor Michael Gmoser and Howe’s family say yes. “Before the beginning of this trial I said I wanted the facts of this case fully...
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