Defense attorney adds to reasons he wants murder charge dismissed
Cites numerous problems with late evidence released by Youngstown police
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YOUNGSTOWN -- Defense attorney David Betras has augmented his earlier arguments in asking Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge John Durkin to dismiss the murder charges his client, David Tribble, 46, faces in the July 11, 2024, shooting death of Jermaine A. Tillis Sr., 51, on East Judson Avenue.
Betras first sought dismissal June 21, the morning the Tribble trial was postponed, because of late evidence being provided to Betras and other issues. He further discussed the issue at a June 30 hearing where Durkin bore down on prosecutors to understand the reasons prosecutors and the defense did not know the details of an interview of a key witness conducted by a Youngstown police detective in February 2025 until just before the June 21, 2026, trial date.
The case is set for another hearing Aug. 14, apparently regarding the late evidence. And the case has a Sept. 28 trial date.
Betras' new filing clarifies the many problems he has with the way the case has unfolded -- primarily getting the video too late for the trial to go forward and the possibility that an assistant prosecutor committed misconduct for the instructions he gave the witness prior to his or her testimony before the grand jury.
Because of the multiple issues Betras thinks went wrong in the case, he has asked Durkin to dismiss the charges against Tribble. The new filing asks for the dismissal "based upon ... cumulative due process violations" and "broader institutional failure to ensure that criminal (evidence provided to the defense) is identified, collected, reviewed and disclosed before trial."
The filing states that the "point" of his motion to dismiss is that "the record now demonstrates something larger than an isolated mistake. It demonstrates an institutional failure that has survived continuances, admonishments, sanctions hearings, policy announcements, meetings and prior judicial leniency."
Betras noted that there have been several earlier instances of late evidence being turned over to the defense, resulting in postponed trials and a defendant having to remain in jail awaiting trial longer because of the failures of the prosecutors and police.
"The issue is whether the State may repeatedly fail to produce material evidence before the trial, then cure its own failure by taking time from the liberty of the accused," the new filing states.
As for the late videotaped interview, Betras stated that the person who gave it is "the central civilian witness to the defense." The person was present at the time of the shooting death, was involved in a confrontation prior to the shooting and is "connected to the firearm."
After testifying at the grand jury, the witness went to the Youngstown Police Department to speak to the detective on the case. The note the detective added to his case notes stated that the witness "came to the (police) station to speak with me. (The person) advised (he or she) wanted to go over the details from the night of the shooting. The interview was recorded" and the witness said the gun involved in the shooting belonged to him or her.
Betras stated that the note the detective added did not disclose information that would be relevant to the defense's case, as it should have. Betras discovered that the witness had spoken to the detective one additional time in February 2025 on his own by talking to the witness himself as part of his trial preparation in June. Betras is the person who notified prosecutors of the second interview.
Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz told Durkin at the June 30 hearing that the detective told Juhasz that he thought he had taken the necessary steps to deliver the interview with the witness to the database that is available to the defense, but he did not.
Juhasz said the detective "reported" to the defense and prosecutors that the witness "came to the detective division on Feb. 27." But Juhasz said, "I frankly missed it."
Betras explained in the filing that the misconduct of prosecutors that was suggested in talking to the witness is "over the line if true." Betras stated that when a witness says certain things to a prosecutor, those kinds of things must be "meaningfully documented, communicated or disclosed." If that does not happen, "the problem is not merely delayed evidence. It reaches the integrity of the charging process itself."
The Betras filing urges Durkin to hold a hearing to identify what the prosecutor allegedly talked to the witness about before the witness testified to the grand jury and order testimony regarding what the witness said to the grand jury.
OTHER CASES
There have been other cases this year in which evidence was provided late in major felony criminal case. One was in Judge Maureen Sweeney's court in February. Attorney John Shultz raised the issue that time, saying 382 photos were disclosed to him the previous Friday morning for a Monday-morning trial, along with text messages that were possibly helpful to Shultz's client's case.
Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn Maro explained that prosecutors did not know about the photos either and contacted the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office to discuss it.
The trial was postponed. Maro said sheriff's detectives considered the missing information unnecessary and called the missing evidence "tangential," such as "a dispute with a neighbor." But "We have explained to them 'Everything means everything.'"
On July 29, Betras raised an issue over late evidence in the Marques Jones felonious assault case before Judge Sweeney.
Betras said he learned of crime lab photographs and a crime lab report less than a day before Jones was set for trial. Betras said he wanted to use one of the photos he learned about Tuesday in the trial and doesn't know whether other photos would be useful because he hadn't had time to see all of them yet. He said one photo shows a single bullet shell casing in a car, which is germane to the number of shots fired inside of a car.
Betras said there is a "consistent pattern of (evidence) being provided late" to the defense in criminal cases in Mahoning County. "The court's always doing the least restrictive thing to sanction them," Betras said of the county prosecutor's office and police personnel.
"The underlying problem is an institutional, decade-long problem of (evidence) violations that need to be sanctioned appropriately so it stops," Betras said.
Sweeney dismissed the felonious assault, but as Betras said he would, Jones pleaded guilty to one count each of tampering with evidence and one count of failure to comply with the order of a police officer, both third-degree felonies. Jones will be sentenced later.