YOUNGSTOWN — An assistant Ohio attorney general filed a response Wednesday to the appeal filed by Brandon Crump Jr., 22, of his convictions and sentence in the 2020 killing of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney and the shootings of four adults in Struthers.

Assistant Attorney General Drew Wood first disputed the contention by Crump attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones that Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito erred in allowing over 100 “gruesome and repetitive photographs” to be shown to the jury, which Cartwright-Jones claimed prejudiced the jury against Crump.

Firstly, the record fails to show that Crump’s trial attorney, Lou DeFabio, objected to more than three of the photographs being introduced, Wood’s filing states. As a result, use of the photos can be denied only under “exceptional circumstances and only to prevent a manifest miscarriage of justice,” Drew stated.

Cartwright-Jones asked the 7th District Court of Appeals to reverse Crump’s convictions, remove Crump’s sentence and order his case back to common pleas court for a new trial, stating that Crump’s argument over the photos should be reviewed under the standard of capital murder cases, even though Crump was not facing the death penalty.

The Crump case involved “the gravest of offenses,” and Crump was 17 — a juvenile — at the time of the offenses, “a fact that necessitates heightened caution to ensure fairness and prevent undue prejudice,” Cartwright-Jones argued in his earlier brief.

However, Woods argued that the Ohio Supreme Court “established a bright-line rule regarding gruesome photographs: capital cases receive a heightened standard of review, while non-capital cases” do not. “The question is whether the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed the (evidence) value of the photographs,” Wood stated.

There were evidentiary reasons why photographs of the boy still in the Struthers home after the homicide were relevant, Woods stated. One was that the crime scene technician was able to show the “length that he went to to make sure the scene was documented,” the filing states.

Because this was not a capital case, D’Apolito properly weighed only whether the evidentiary value of the photos outweighed the danger of unfair prejudice to Crump, Woods stated.

Crump was convicted at trial of aggravated murder and other offenses for shooting Rowan to death, and robbing and attempting to kill the four adults by shooting all of them during a robbery. Crump was sentenced to 52 years to life in prison in July.

Two co-defendants, Kimonie Bryant, 28, and Andre McCoy, 24, took plea deals and were both sentenced to shorter life prison sentences than Crump. McCoy, Rowan’s mother, Alexis Schneider, and Cassandra Marsicola testified at Crump’s trial. All three were shot inside the Struthers home, but survived. A fourth shooting victim, Yarnell Green, the boyfriend of Schneider, was shot to death outside a downtown Youngstown bar in September 2002.

Cartwright-Jones also argued that Crump’s conviction for conspiracy was in error because the state failed to present sufficient evidence to prove Crump’s involvement, including failing to prove Crump committed an “overt act” of conspiracy.

Woods countered that despite there being no direct evidence that Crump conspired with Bryant or McCoy, there was ample circumstantial evidence. Cellphone locational data presented at the trial showed the movements of the cellphones of Crump and Bryant just prior to the shootings, at the time of the shootings and just after the shootings, the Woods filing states.

The data showed the two phones in “proximity” to each other, meaning the two were together, which is why there were no phone conversations between Crump and Bryant near the time of the shootings, Woods argued. By contrast, text messages show that McCoy and Bryant texted each other just prior to the shootings to facilitate the robbery.

“Bryant received (a) ‘go ahead’ communication and conveyed it to (Crump), and (Crump) commenced the robbery by” himself, Woods argued. “These constitute the substantial overt act alleged in the indictment” for complicity, one of Bryant’s convictions, the Woods filing argues.

Woods also responded to several other alleged errors made in the Crump case, such as the judge allowing evidence to be presented at trial on bullet shell casings recovered at a home on Ravenwood Avenue in Youngstown that prosecutors linked to Crump. He also responded to Crump’s allegation that his convictions are “against the manifest weight of the evidence” because of unreliable witness testimony. Another was the judge failing to adequately consider mitigating factors presented regarding Crump’s upbringing before sentencing him.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the appeal in the Crump case because Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn Maro and Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz made up the defense team for Bryant. That took place prior to Maro taking office Jan. 6 as county prosecutor and Juhasz being hired by Maro to work in the county prosecutor’s office.

It was “ethically appropriate” for them to give notice of a conflict of interest in the Crump appeal because of the information they learned while representing Bryant, their filing stated.