YOUNGSTOWN Prosecutors urge keeping prison sentence for woman

Danielle Kramer isn't scheduled to be let out of prison until 2010.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Prosecutors say Danielle Kramer should stay in prison, despite pleas from her friends, family and lawyers to let her out early.
Kramer, 26, of Parnell Avenue, is serving a 10-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter and using a firearm, to which she pleaded guilty in March 2001.
She shot and killed 25-year-old Charise Harmon of Palmer Street during a fight that followed a traffic accident near F & amp;N Market on Shehy Street in 2000.
Kramer's lawyer, Joseph Rafidi, filed a request last week asking Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to shorten Kramer's sentence and let her out of prison early. She is not scheduled to be released until 2010.
Letters
Rafidi's motion was accompanied by letters from several of Kramer's friends who vouched for her character and urged the judge to grant her early release. State Rep. Kenneth Carano of Austintown, D-59th, was among those who submitted letters for Kramer.
Assistant prosecutor Patrick R. Pochiro filed a response this week in which he said Rafidi's motion portrayed Kramer's situation as if "some innocent has been incarcerated," and that a jury would not have convicted her.
Pochiro wrote that evidence in the case indicated that Kramer intended to kill Harmon, not that it was accidental or self-defense. He said if Kramer's lawyer and friends consider the facts, they would see things differently.
"Perhaps they would consider the facts such as [Kramer] shooting the unarmed victim in the heart from about 10 feet away might cause a jury to believe that [Kramer] did have the purpose to kill," Pochiro wrote.
Children were there
He also said the fact that Kramer shot Harmon in front of Harmon's three young children would disprove Rafidi's self-defense theory.
Pochiro said Kramer should not be eligible to apply for judicial release from prison until mid-2008.
A hearing on the matter has not been set.
bjackson@vindy.com