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YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County prosecutors argue in a new brief that Judge Anthony Donofrio of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court did what he was supposed to on June 12 -- listen to testimony, determine the credibility of witnesses and decide whether jurors in the 2008 Bennie Adams murder trial knew too much about Adams' earlier rape conviction.
Adams, 66, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life for the 1985 aggravated murder of Youngstown State University student Gina Tenney, 19, Adams' upstairs neighbor in an Ohio Avenue duplex. His first parole hearing will be in August 2028.
The filing in the 7th District Court of Appeals said statements a female juror was accused of making to a male juror about her nonsocial personality may have been crucial to determining who was more credible.
The judge "further found (the female juror) to be credible in her statements that she was not a social person either at the time of the (June 12, 2023) hearing or at the (2008) trial, and that she did not relate to the rest of the jury," the filing states
The woman testified at the June 12 hearing that she did not tell the male juror about Adams having been convicted prior to the 2008 trial of rape and having spent many years in prison for it.
But the male juror testified that the female juror told him about Adams' rape trial after the jury had recommended that Adams get the death penalty. Additionally, he testified she told him she knew something that might make him feel better.
The male juror had been struggling with whether he wanted to vote to recommend that Adams get the death penalty. He decided to vote for the death penalty.
Just before the jury's decision on death was announced, the female juror told him that "if it makes you feel better, (Adams) had been in prison on a rape charge," he said. The conversation took place at lunch, after the jury had decided to vote for death but before the jury announced its recommendation that Adams get the death penalty, he said.
A juror knowing about Adams' previous criminal history while sitting on such a jury would be a violation of Adams' rights, his attorneys have argued. If the allegation is proven, Adams wants a new trial. The June 12 hearing was ordered by a federal judge to determine whether such a statement was made.
The woman testified June 12 she had no memory of the male juror and did not remember having the conversation the male juror said had occurred. She said she did not know at any point during the trial or penalty phase the reason why Adams previously had been in prison.
Judge Donofrio's ruling stated that he found the female juror's testimony credible in June when she suggested she also would not have made such remarks because she was "not a social person and certainly was no more sociable 15 years ago when she was (so young) and in a room with mostly older ... jurors to whom she did not relate."
The judge found the female juror's testimony more credible than the male juror's testimony in part because he was the only juror who testified to having known that information prior to the end of the case.
The prosecution filing stated that there was a "direct conflict" between the testimony of the male juror and the female juror and it was the judge's "sole obligation to determine whom to believe. It chose" the female juror, adding that the 7th District Court of Appeals "cannot disturb that finding based on this record."
EXPERT WITNESS
The defense filing Oct. 23 by attorneys Kimberly Rigby and Renee Severyn argued that Donofrio erred during the June hearing for not allowing Adams' expert witness to testify to errors made by the late Judge Timothy 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 Edelman'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.
But the filing by Ralph Rivera and Ed Czopur of the prosecutor's office found Edelman's testimony "irrelevant" and "nothing short of an attempt by the defense to usurp the role of (Judge Donofrio) as fact-finder and so too were any questions relative to what jurors read in the paper."
Edelman stated that potential jurors in the case were not adequately questioned as to what they had learned through news media accounts during jury selection and in a jury questionnaire and stated that it is "reasonable to assume that a juror would have been exposed to that coverage since it was very prominent," the prosecution filing states.
But Edelman's attempt to speak to "the credibility of another witness ... is strictly prohibited" in case law.
Adams' defense attorneys want to file an additional brief before the case goes to oral arguments before the appeals court, which Adams' attorneys have requested.