Flawed law leads to resentencing

YOUNGSTOWN — A city man who was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in February for vehicular assault and leaving the scene of an accident got the exact same maximum prison term in a re-sentencing hearing.

David Caruso, 26, who gave addresses on both Craiger and Lenox avenues at the time of his original sentencing by Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, was back before Judge Krichbaum Thursday.

The judge explained that the Ohio legislature passed a law requiring judges to make certain findings when handing down maximum sentences, and he followed that law in his original sentencing of Caruso to maximum terms of 1 1/2 years for vehicular assault and one year for leaving the scene of an accident.

It was a law which Judge Krichbaum said he believed was unconstitutional but was required to follow at the time.   The Ohio Supreme Court has since ruled part of the law unconstitutional and the sentencing court no longer has to elaborate on its reasons for imposing maximum sentences.

Defendants who were sentenced under the statute now have to be re-sentenced, Krichbaum said, calling the process “a tremendous waste of governmental resources.”

Caruso pleaded guilty in December 2005 to both charges in connection with a two-vehicle collision at Powers Way and Windsor Avenue on Aug. 29, 2005.

Elizabeth Berry of Youngstown, who was seriously injured in the crash, was stopped at a traffic light at the intersection, got the green light to make a left turn and proceeded into the intersection where her car was struck broadside by Caruso’s Blazer SUV, Judge Krichbaum said.

Caruso had been speeding and weaving in and out of traffic moments before the crash, the judge said.

Caruso and a passenger in his vehicle fled the scene on foot although Caruso came back a short time later.   He fled the scene again when friends told him they thought Berry had been killed, Judge Krichbaum said.