Grand jury indicts Koliser

An assistant prosecutor said Hartzell's killing warrants the death penalty.
& lt;a href=mailto:bjackson@vindy.com & gt;By BOB JACKSON & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County prosecutors said there was no doubt about whether they would seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing Youngstown policeman Michael Hartzell.
A county grand jury indicted Martin L. Koliser Jr., 30, on Thursday on charges of aggravated murder, attempted murder, felonious assault, escape and illegal possession of a weapon.
The aggravated murder charge carries three death-penalty specifications. Prosecutor Paul Gains said a jury needs only to convict him of one specification for the death penalty to be imposed.
Proceeding with caution
Prosecutors have been cautious about seeking the death penalty in murder cases since a jury declined to impose the death penalty on Anthony Anderson last year, opting instead for a life prison sentence.
Anderson was convicted of killing a young mother and her 4-year-old son, and shooting the woman's 3-year-old daughter in the face. The little girl survived.
Prosecutors believed that case merited the death penalty and were surprised when it wasn't imposed. After that verdict, prosecutors said they would carefully evaluate cases before seeking the death penalty because of the time and expense involved in trying those cases.
"This case cries out for it," assistant prosecutor Jay Macejko said of Hartzell's killing.
Hartzell, 26, was fatally shot as he sat in his cruiser on West Federal Street on April 29.
Authorities say Hartzell was ambushed by Koliser, after the two ended up at a stoplight.
That shooting was about two hours after Donel J. Rowe was shot outside a Mahoning Avenue bar. Koliser also is a suspect in that shooting, which is the reason for the attempted murder and felonious assault charges against him.
The escape charge is because he fled to Florida, supposedly to avoid apprehension and prosecution in the shootings, Gains said.
One possibility
He said a jury can recommend the death penalty for Koliser if it finds that he killed Hartzell to avoid apprehension and prosecution for the Rowe shooting, that the two shootings are related, and that he knowingly killed a police officer.
Macejko said prosecutors would like to gain convictions on all three, so that if one is overturned on appeal, there is at least one death specification still in place.
Gains said he's not sure whether pretrial publicity regarding the case will result in the trial being moved to another county, but he'll deal with that if it happens.
"We will try this case wherever the court tells us to," Gains said.
Macejko said Mahoning County has two other death-penalty cases pending. One is against Lance Lynch, accused of torturing and killing a New York truck driver in 2002. Lynch was indicted in March 2002 and his trial is set for July 9.
The other is against John Drummond, who was indicted April 3 in the killing of a 3-month-old baby in a drive-by shooting March 23. His case is set for trial June 18.
& lt;a href=mailto:bjackson@vindy.com & gt;bjackson@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;