YOUNGSTOWN — A new appeals court filing for Benny Adams, 65, the man convicted of killing Youngstown State University student Gina Tenney, 19, in 1985, questions the ruling by Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court when he found no credible evidence that jurors knew too much about Adams when they convicted him of aggravated murder in 2008.

Following a June 12 hearing at which most of the jurors from the 2008 trial were questioned about what they knew about Adams’ earlier rape conviction, Donofrio ruled that Adams would not get a new trial. Adams’ lawyers appealed the decision to the 7th District Court of Appeals.

Donofrio found that the statements of a juror who said he thought fellow jurors knew about Adams’ earlier rape conviction were not credible, in part because the juror’s recollections did not match “with the memories of his fellow jurors.”

The juror “reported that at least three other jurors were aware of Adams’ prior rape conviction during the penalty phase deliberations and believed that they knew during the trial phase as well,” the filing states.

The jurors were not allowed to know such information because it could have improperly influenced them to find Adams guilty of Tenney’s murder.

Adams is in the Ohio prison system with parole eligibility in June 2028. He served his prison sentence for the earlier rape prior to his murder trial.

The filing Monday by attorneys Kimberly Rigby and Renee Severyn also argued that Donofrio erred during the June hearing for not allowing Adams’ expert witness to testify to errors made by Judge Timonthy Franken, who oversaw the 2008 trial.

Specifically, Dr. Bryan Edelman, an expert in jury behavior and jury psychology, would have testified to the pretrial publicity the case received in The Vindicator and the lack of effective measures undertaken to ensure that the jurors selected were not tainted by that news coverage.

The filing states that based on Edleman’s review of jury selection and newspaper articles from 2007 and 2008, “it was highly likely that at least one or more of the jurors knew about Adams’ prior conviction during the first phase (guilt or innocence) of the trial,” the filing states.

Donofrio allowed the defense to question several of the jurors during the June hearing about the news they received prior to the trial, but Donofrio “wavered” by about the fifth witness. He then stopped Adams’ attorneys from asking about information they may have gotten from news accounts.

After the hearing, Adams’ attorneys wanted the judge to have Edelman’s testimony entered into the record. The judge found the testimony “not relevant” and did not consider it when he ruled against giving Adams a new trial, the filing states.

“Despite noting the various inconsistencies in the jurors’ testimony, the court found that their testimony was more credible than” the juror who reported that jurors knew too much about Adams’ previous conviction, the filing states.

It adds that the reason U.S. District Court Judge James S. Gwin ordered Donofrio to hold the June hearing was “to determine the ‘nature, timing and extent’ of jurors learning prejudicial extraneous information before or during the first phase of Adams’ capital trial.

“But when Adams attempted to uncover information within that scope, the trial court limited his ability to do so,” the filing states. “The fact-finding that the federal court ordered was thwarted by the trial court’s exclusion of Adams’ expert testimony and the unconstitutional limitations that the court placed on questioning.”

The filing noted that Donofrio stated the reason for not allowing the pretrial publicity into the June hearing was that the issue “had already been fully litigated and rejected by prior courts.”

Edelman concluded it was “highly likely that one or more of the jurors learned about Adams’ prior conviction before or during the first phase (guilt-innocence) of the trial.” Edelman pointed to the fact that seven of the 12 jurors said they read The Vindicator and alleged that the jury selection process was carried out “poorly.”

The second phase of the trial was the penalty phase, where the jurors recommended a death sentence for Adams. Franken imposed the death penalty, though that sentence was later modified to 20 years to life.

The filing also argued that Edelman should have been allowed to present testimony on other psychological factors that “directly impacted the constitutional adequacy of the (June) hearing.”

Next, the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s office has a chance to file its brief in the appeal.