YOUNGSTOWN Second court denies appeal for killer

Hughes' lawyer argued that a juror acted improperly at his 2002 trial.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- An East Marion Avenue man imprisoned for murder has lost another round in his fight for a new trial.
Melvin Hughes, 32, had argued that his January 2002 conviction was tainted because a juror felt compelled to convict him for fear of being prosecuted himself if he did not go along with the majority.
Judge Maureen A. Cronin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who presided over his trial, denied Hughes' first request for a new trial. That's when Hughes' lawyer, Douglas B. Taylor, turned to the 7th District Court of Appeals.
In a decision handed down Thursday, the appellate court denied Hughes' bid for a new trial.
Hughes was convicted of killing 25-year-old Eugene McKinney with an AK-47 assault rifle at McKinney's Ferndale Avenue home in September 2001.
In his appeal, Taylor argued that one of the jurors in Hughes' trial -- a 72-year-old man -- failed to inform the court during juror selection that he had a past criminal conviction. Taylor said that conviction would have made the man ineligible to serve as a juror.
The juror in question had been convicted 50 years earlier of possessing heroin.
Appellate court ruling
The three-judge appellate court ruled, though, that there was no wrongdoing by the juror and that Hughes was not denied a fair trial.
The court found that the juror did not intentionally conceal the information, but that he simply misunderstood a question on a jury screening form that asked whether he or any member of his family had ever been involved in a lawsuit.
"It seems the juror may not have taken the word 'lawsuit' to mean criminal prosecution," the court wrote in its opinion.
Hughes also argued in his appeal that the same juror voted guilty only because he has diabetes and did not have medication with him at the courthouse, so wanted to go home.
The appellate court said there is no evidence of that, though, and denied the appeal.
bjackson@vindy.com