Catching up with an appeals court ruling, State Superior Court has affirmed the sentence imposed on Shaun Fairman, who was found guilty of second degree murder and burglary in the shooting death of his father-in-law.
Fairman fatally shot Richard Shotts in June of 2012 at the North Mahoning Township home of Fairman’s then-estranged wife, Jessica. He claimed he went to the home to kill himself in front of her, but when his father-in-law refused to let him in, he shot him through a kitchen window. Jessica then shot her husband through a closet door, as he went room-to-room searching for her. She held him at gunpoint until police arrived.
Fairman argued that the weight of the evidence did not warrant conviction for second degree murder. His previous appeals before Judge William Martin and Superior Court were denied, but the appeals court then ruled that his attorneys should have raised the weight of the evidence question at trial. Last June, Judge Martin denied the weight of the evidence issue, setting up Fairman’s now-denied new appeal.
In its ruling posted February 28th, the appellate court says that Fairman “fails to highlight a single example of testimony or evidence that would support his claim. Rather, he relies on bald assertions that ‘the evidence clearly shows that [he] was intent upon killing himself … as individuals were deeply concerned for [his] well-being,’ and that ‘material witnesses testified that he was drunk.’
Fairman is serving life without parole at SCI Forest County.
