YOUNGSTOWN — An aggravated murder trial that might hinge on an unusual type of identification of the suspect won’t go forward Monday, after defense attorneys cried foul last week.

Attorneys David Betras and Patrick Kirally filed a motion in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court asking that the trial of Lavontae E. Knight be postponed or certain evidence be tossed because they were not given evidence in the state’s possession favorable to the defense until April 30 — 10 days before the trial was supposed to begin.

The evidence is related to a photo lineup police showed to a witness in the case.

Knight is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and other charges in the Oct. 25, 2018, shooting death of Josh Donatelli, 26, at Donatelli’s home on Imperial Street on the West Side.

Judge John Durkin ruled Wednesday that the trial would be postponed because of evidence prosecutors and the Youngstown Police Department were supposed to share with the defense but did not. The trial is now set for Aug. 9.

Jennifer McLaughlin, chief of the criminal division of the prosecutor’s office, said Thursday that prosecutors did not tell the defense about the evidence when asked about it — because prosecutors did not know it existed.

“It was just an oversight,” McLaughlin said.

During Wednesday’s hearing, the judge said he believes assistant Prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa is being truthful as to why prosecutors did not provide the evidence.

The judge mentioned a change in the way evidence is now stored and provided to defense attorneys as a possible explanation for the error. Recently the prosecutor’s office switched from having detectives provide paper copies of evidence to having them upload it directly into a computer system.

Nonetheless, the incident leaves him scratching his head, the judge said.

“I understand the switch from paper to (digital), and I understand that things get lost in the shuffle,” the judge said.

“But what I have trouble wrapping my brain around is why it took so long for someone to communicate with detective (Michael) Lambert to ask him the simple question … is there anything else in this case involving this eyewitness that we know happened?

“Because if that phone call had been made, had this discovery been produced more than 10 days before trial, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” he said.

WITNESS IDENTIFICATION

One of the reasons the defense gave for needing the trial date to be moved back is that an expert the defense hired needs time to amend her trial report to reflect the new evidence.

Knight’s attorneys hired psychology professor Margaret Bull Kovera to serve as an expert and possibly testify at Knight’s trial on issues related a key issue in the trial: witness identification.

Among the issues Bull Kovera is expected to address is cross racial identification, meaning a witness being able to pick out a person of another race from a photo lineup administered by police.

In December 2019, Betras asked Durkin to approve spending funds to hire Kovera, saying the outcome of Knight’s case may hinge on witness identification issues.

The witness identification of Knight came about in an unusual way.

Knight was charged in Donatelli’s murder after a witness identified Knight as being involved. Cantalamessa told Durkin at at a 2019 pretrial hearing that the witness identified Knight by seeing him on television in an unrelated matter.

In their motion asking for postponement of the trial, defensey attorneys, Betras and Kirally complained they did not receive the missing evidence despite many requests for it.

Only on April 30 did prosecutors tell Knight’s attorneys that a Youngstown police detective had shown a witness in the case a photo lineup of six similar-looking men and asked the witness whether any one of them was the person who killed Donatelli.

The response the witness gave might be helpful in defending Knight, 25, his attorneys stated in the motion.

The defense filing states that because they did not get the evidence sooner, it “cannot adequately prepare for trial when the State completely disregards” Ohio criminal rules requiring evidence to be provided to the defense.

Donatelli family members were not happy that the trial might be postponed again. Cantalamessa told that to Durkin during Wednesday’s hearing.

Durkin said he did was not eager to postpone the trial again, but it could not be avoided.

The judge said he understands Donatelli’s family objects to postponing the trial, but the rules that govern trials “guarantee one thing, and that is a fair trial to both the state of Ohio and the defendant.”

He added, “I want justice to be done … But that can only be accomplished with everything out on the table, giving both sides a full and fair opportunity to evaluate and examine the evidence — the reports, the discovery — and to allow sufficient time to adequately and sufficiently present the case to the jury.”

erunyan@vindy.com