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YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony Donofrio has refused the request of John E. Drummond Jr. to argue for a new trial based on allegedly newly discovered evidence.
Drummond, 49, is on death row in the 2003 shooting death of 3-month old Jiyen C. Dent Jr. on Rutledge Drive on Youngstown's East Side.
Attorneys for Drummond filed a motion in July 2025, asking Donofrio to allow them to file a "delayed" request for a new trial, saying they obtained affidavits from two men who testified at Drummond's trial, one of whom now says the incriminating statements he made were false and that he only testified in that manner in hopes of getting a better outcome in his own criminal case. The men were inmates with Drummond in the Mahoning County jail. The process of deciding whether to grant or deny the motion was delayed by the prosecutor's office not being able to locate documents related to the case within the files of the Mahoning County Prosecutor's Office.
Eventually, a "sealed" file was discovered in a locked filing cabinet within the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Office and later provided to the county prosecutor's office so that it would have information to file a response May 4, 2026.
Prosecutors argued that there was no valid reason for Drummond to get a new trial. It also argued that Donofrio does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter because the defense failed to show why Drummond was "unavoidably prevented" from raising the issue of the two former inmates "within the period prescribed by law."
Donofrio's Aug. 7 ruling states that in this matter, the defense was required to show by "clear and convincing proof that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering this 'new evidence.' The defendant, through his (attorneys) makes such a claim but offers no evidence in support of such claim by affidavit or otherwise."
The ruling continues, "Thus (Drummond) has not presented any evidence that he was unavoidably prevented from discovering this 'new' evidence, much less proven such by clear and convincing evidence."
In October of 2024, Gov. Mike DeWine pushed the execution of John Drummond back from April 16, 2025, to March 15, 2028.
Drummond was already serving his sentence in the 2003 Youngstown murder when he was convicted in 2013 of aggravated murder in the 1997 killing of Ronald Hull in Ashtabula. Drummond was sentenced to 20 years to life in that case. Other suspects in that case entered guilty pleas.