'In the Jury Room': State v. Ducic

C L E V E L A N D, Aug. 10, 2004 -- Part one of In the Jury Room follows the case of Mark Ducic, a 47-year-old charged with two murders. If convicted, a jury of 12 of his peers would be asked to decide whether he should be sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Watch Part 1 of In the Jury Room: State of Ohio vs. Mark Ducic on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. Part 2 airs on Wednesday at the same time.

In September 2001, Barbara Davis, Mark Ducic's common-law wife, was found dead at the home of one of Ducic's friends, Don Ehrke. There were lethal amounts of numerous drugs in her system, and the police believed that Davis, a longtime drug abuser, died from an accidental overdose.

Ehrke was also found dead 16 months later. The coroner initially ruled Ehrke's death an accidental overdose as well, but Cleveland prosecutor Dan Kasaris believed Ducic murdered both Davis and Ehrke by intentionally giving them fatal concoctions of drugs.

Popular Reads

Judge rules Trump DOJ 'unlawfully' fired Maurene Comey

• Oct 26

Escaped murderer's stolen truck found, location remains unknown: Authorities

• 1 day ago

Britt McHenry resigns from State Department after basketball game altercation

• Oct 23

Kasaris believed that Ducic murdered Davis, his longtime girlfriend, because she threatened to turn him in to the police for drug dealing, and then killed Ehrke because he was the only witness to Davis' murder. For these crimes Kasaris and his co-counsel, fellow prosecutor Mark Mahoney, would ask a jury to convict Ducic of mass murder and sentence him to death.

"Mark Ducic is a danger to the citizens of Euclid, the citizens of Cuyahoga County, to the citizens of Ohio. This time when he committed crimes, he killed two people. I think with this man, with these circumstances, it justifies the death penalty," Kasaris said.

John Luskin, Ducic's court-appointed counsel, believed that Davis and Ehrke's deaths were not murder, but rather the accidental overdoses of two drug abusers.

"Mark Ducic is not a murderer. That's what my gut instinct tells me. Thirty years of experience is telling me that's not the right guy. And the 13-odd death penalty cases I have tried, I have no one on death row, and I don't want to start with Ducic," said Luskin, a former police captain turned defense lawyer.