WARREN Judge reverses death sentence

The attorney general's office has 30 days to decide to appeal the ruling.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A U.S. District Court judge has reversed the death sentence of a Trumbull County man convicted of double murder.
Judge David D. Dowd Jr. of U.S. District Court, Akron, granted Charles Lorraine's writ of habeas corpus earlier this week and ordered that Lorraine must be resentenced in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court in 120 days or be released.
Lorraine is on Ohio's death row. A writ of habeas corpus is an order requiring a person to be brought to court to decide the legality of his imprisonment.
Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins could not be reached to comment. LuWayne Annos, an assistant county prosecutor, said the decision is disappointing. She noted that the state attorney general's office is handling the case in the federal court.
Will likely appeal: Bret Crow, an attorney general's office spokesman, said the office has 30 days to appeal the ruling, adding "we will very likely appeal the decision."
The appeal would be filed with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Crow said.
Atty. Mark Triplett of Bellefontaine, who represents Lorraine, could not be reached to comment.
Judge Dowd stated in his 95-page ruling that he reversed the sentence because he believes "the death sentence very likely resulted from the cumulative effect of defense counsel's ineffectiveness and the prosecution's misconduct" during the trial's mitigation phase.
It is during the mitigation phase of a capital murder trial that jurors are asked to determine if the defendant should receive the death penalty.
The murders: Lorraine was convicted in November 1986 for the murders of Raymond Montgomery, 77, and his wife, Doris, 80. The two were killed in their home on Haymaker Avenue Northwest.
The same jury that found Lorraine guilty was then asked to hear facts about his life and then determine if he should be sentenced to death.
Judge Dowd said in his ruling that attorneys Michael Gleospen and Scott Kenney of the Ohio Public Defenders Commission were ineffective in the mitigation and sentencing phases of the trial.
"They [defense counsel] did not pursue available leads with respect to mitigation," Judge Dowd ruled.
The judge also stated in his ruling that the prosecutor failed to reveal the identity of a rebuttal witness. The prosecution called a psychiatrist as a rebuttal witness.
The psychiatrist was used to "shoot down" testimony given by the defense's expert witness, the ruling states. "This was trial by ambush, and it infected the mitigation phase of the trial," Judge Dowd ruled.