Convict who brutalized woman to get resentencing hearing

WARREN -- A second Trumbull County convict will get a new sentencing hearing because of rulings in the state and federal supreme courts that change the way judges must sentence defendants.
Ernest L. Averiett III of Warren was convicted in January 2005 on four charges -- felonious assault, kidnapping, intimidation and failure to comply with the orders of a police officer. Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court sentenced him to 26 years in prison.
Police said he assaulted his girlfriend by punching her, burning her chest, arms, legs and abdomen, choking her, kicking her in the head and dragging her by the hair.
Averiett appealed his convictions to the 11th District Court of Appeals, which denied the appeal in a ruling released this week except to require Judge Kontos to sentence Averiett again based on sentencing rulings handed down by the U.S. and Ohio supreme courts.
LuWayne Annos, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said in April that the rulings would likely produce nine more cases that would require resentencing, including Averiett's. The first case was one involving David A. Harrington, 42, of Warren.
The resentencings are being ordered because of a case called Blakely v. Washington, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that judges must not use evidence not heard by a jury to determine the severity of the defendant's sentence.
Annos said judges have the option of giving a defendant the same sentence as before, but the words used in the sentencing must be different.