Defense attorney Dave Betras makes a point Tuesday during a hearing on a motion he made in the murder trial of David Tribble for charges against Tribble to be dismissed because of late evidence. The trial for Tribble is now scheduled to begin Sept. 28.

YOUNGSTOWN — A lengthy hearing took place Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to discuss motions attorney David Betras filed asking that the murder charge and other charges against David Tribble, 46, of Youngstown, be dismissed in the July 11, 2024, shooting death of Jermaine A. Tillis Sr., 51, in Youngstown.

Betras argued June 22 that dismissal was the proper sanction for prosecutors turning over late a copy of a videotaped interview of a witness by a Youngstown police detective.

Betras said that he discovered such an interview took place while talking to the witness in preparation for the trial. Prosecutors obtained a copy of the interview and provided it to Betras, but it was deemed too late for the trial to take place last week.

The 70-minute hearing Tuesday resulted in agreement by Durkin and the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office that prosecutors committed a violation of “discovery” rules in the Tribble case, meaning a violation of the rules saying when and what prosecutors are required to turn over to the defense.

Durkin said Tuesday he is aware that the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office had been working with the Mahoning County police departments to address such issues. He asked if prosecutors had worked specifically with the Youngstown Police Department on it.

“As I said last Monday (the day the trial was postponed), we were not happy learning about this,” Juhasz said of the late interview evidence. “Once this happened, (Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn) Maro arranged a telephone conference with (Youngstown Police) Chief (Sharon) Cole, Capt. (Brad) Blackburn, who is the captain of detectives, and Lt. (Brian) Butler, who is the head of internal affairs.”

Juhasz said what prosecutors learned during the meeting is that Youngstown police detectives keep “a sort of running narrative of what the detective does in the case.” He said two things were suggested to the police department.

“One is we are going to have the detective just put a big line” in the detective notes they give to prosecutors to indicate what has been provided to prosecutors around the time the case is presented to prosecutors.

He said he knows problems can still happen in a case after that. But it will delineate what evidence was turned over after that point so that it is easily observable.

Blackburn also asked the prosecutor’s office to give him a list of all upcoming trials “so he can sit down with each of the case detectives” a couple of months ahead of the trial and look at all evidence detectives told prosecutors about and “what else, if anything, is there, so that these things can be remedied,” Juhasz said.

Juhasz said some detectives may not “be as attentive as they should be. Sometimes, I think it’s just the rush of DNA results (for example) comes in in the middle of an investigation of a shooting that just happened at 2 o’clock in the morning. You’re interviewing 14 witnesses and you don’t get home till noon, even though you’ve been out since midnight. And it just inadvertently happens” that evidence does not make it to prosecutors, Juhasz said.

Juhasz said the conclusion that was reached was “drawing that line” and going over the case a couple of months out “to make sure that we’ve got everything so that we can disclose it to the defense. We’re hoping that that is going to remedy the problem.”

Maro, who attended the hearing, interjected that the line Juhasz mentioned is a warning that every other thing acquired by police after the “line” needs to be listed.” She said detectives are required to “keep a running list so we can catch some of these things.”

She noted the Youngstown Police Department also has “discussed implementing disciplinary measures if everything is not turned over to our office, because currently there are no disciplinary measures in place to address failures to provide complete discovery (evidence) to the prosecutor.”

Betras said the initial prosecutor in the Tribble case before Juhasz was in charge of the case for 14 months. “At some point don’t you at least go to the detective and say, “Do I have everything? Here’s everything you gave me.”

Maro said prosecutors “developed a (case) checklist” and have “gone through files with detectives.” She said, “We know what our obligation is and we do it on every case, and still there are issues, there are documents, there are records that we are getting untimely at the last minute.”

She said it is the reason she called Cole and said, “We need to do something more.”

Durkin said that for him to decide whether to sanction the state for violating discovery rules, he has an obligation to ask about the reasons why it happened.

He asked whether Juhasz knew the reason Youngstown police Detective George Anderson did not forward the videotaped interview of a witness before the trial was set to begin.

Juhasz said, “All he said was he thought he had.” Juhasz said he “tried to check out the technology on this.” He said that when detectives have a video interview, like the one in this case, they load it into a police department database.

“But it is not available to us. It has to go through Lt. (Jose) Morales Jr., and he releases it to Casey, who is our grand jury coordinator.”

Juhasz said Anderson told Juhasz there is a function on the police software that has to be checked to alert Morales that there is something additional to be made available to prosecutors.

Juhasz said Anderson told Juhasz he took one of two steps necessary to forward the information to Morales but not the second step. Juhasz said he also learned that in supplemental notes Anderson gave to prosecutors, Anderson reported that the witness “came to the detective division on Feb. 27. It does say she was interviewed. I frankly missed it.”

Juhasz said Betras also got the notice. “My point is we got that late. David (Betras) got that. But we both knew there was a statement. Probably just in the rush of things and because there was no elaboration on what was in the statement, it didn’t get its due until (the witness) came in (the Saturday before the trial was supposed to begin) and said, ‘I gave another statement to Anderson and I said these things that were different.'”

Anderson did not provide the supplemental report that detailed the second interview until asked about it, Juhasz agreed, when Durkin asked him to clarify.

Durkin said he was thinking about a sanction against Anderson for his role in the trial having to be postponed — assessing Anderson the cost of the canceled trial.

Durkin said that “may well deliver a message to other law enforcement that doing their job matters — to everyone.”

There is still another part of Betras’ motions to address, Durkin stated — providing the contents of the interview to prosecutors and the defense and determining whether the contents of the interview warrant sanctions against the state, Durkin said.

Maro said that to “make a complete record,” she wanted it known that Cole “inherited a lot of problems that she is taking seriously.”

Maro said Cole was immediately responsive when Maro contacted her about the issue. Cole got a meeting together with the prosecutor’s office and said she was “going to change things,” Maro said.

Durkin said that once the prosecution and defense have time to review a transcript of the testimony the witness gave to the grand jury and compare it to what the witness told Anderson, he will determine whether an evidentiary hearing is needed.

At a May 14 Youngstown police awards ceremony, Anderson received the excellent duty award, given to an officer who shows “continual, evident, professional performance during the entire year.”

Cole said in the last few years, Anderson was assigned nine homicide cases as lead detective. “He has solved every single one of those cases and received convictions for suspects in all of them,” she said.

The Tribble case now has a Sept.28 trial date, according to new court records.