Condemned man asks for time to help sister

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. -- A convicted murderer scheduled to be executed next week asked the Indiana Parole Board to grant him clemency or at least enough time to donate his liver to his ailing sister.\n"My sister is sick, she needs a liver," Gregory Scott Johnson said during a hearing Monday at the Indiana State Prison. "At this point, everything else -- including my own life -- is secondary to trying to help her if I can. I'm not so much asking for clemency as just a little more time to see if my liver will work for her."\nJohnson is scheduled to die by chemical injection on May 25 for the 1985 murder of Ruby Hutslar, an 82-year-old Anderson woman. Authorities say he broke into her house, beat and stomped on her, then set a fire to hide his crime. He denies killing Hutslar, although he admits being there and setting the fire.\nEarl Coleman, assistant for the parole board, said when Johnson's attorney, Michelle Kraus, submitted the clemency appeal, he told her the request for the liver donation probably would not carry much weight unless she shows the board it is necessary.\n"The board needs some definite evidence that his sister needs it, he's the only available donor and that he's compatible, things like that," Coleman said by telephone from Indianapolis. "The fact that they don't seem to be that forthcoming makes you wonder if there's anything to it."\nKraus will provide the board more information during the public portion of the hearing Friday in Indianapolis, she said.\nBut she cannot determine whether Johnson and his 48-year-old sister, Deborah Otis, are compatible because the state Department of Correction refuses to take a blood sample without an order, she said.\nOtis, who lives in an Anderson nursing home, does not want to speak with the media, said a woman who answered the telephone Monday at the home.\nKraus said she also planned to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to delay the execution so Johnson can donate his liver.\nJohnson's request to live long enough to donate his liver has raised questions, including whether it is a last-minute ploy to buy more time.\n"It certainly causes me to be suspicious," said Rodney Cummings, prosecutor for Madison County where Anderson is located. "It's hard for me to imagine this liver problem has come up only in the past couple of weeks."\nKraus said the state created the emergency by setting the execution date.\nThe hearing Monday lasted more than two hours, but Johnson's donation request took less than two minutes. Much of it focused on Johnson's troubled youth, what happened on the day Hutslar died and his time in prison.\nJohnson, now 40, said he is ashamed of what he did as a 20-year-old and is not sure that the younger Johnson deserves mercy. But he said he was asking for mercy as a 40-year-old man who has learned from his mistakes.\nJohnson admitted he lied while testifying against a friend, Mark Wisehart, who was sentenced to death for murdering a 61-year-old Anderson woman in 1982. He also said he lied when he confessed to police that he killed Hutslar to protect an accomplice he refused to name.\nValerie Parker, vice chairwoman of the board, expressed frustration, saying she finds it hard to believe that he was coerced to lie by police both times.\nThe state Parole Board has recommended clemency just once in 50 years. Last year, then-Gov. Joe Kernan followed the board's recommendation and spared the life of Darnell Williams, commuting his sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole.