Sealed records to be used in court case

Records are sealed and nobody knows what’s in them.

By TIM YOVICH

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — An appellate court has ruled that all relevant evidence can be used to determine if Ohio death row inmate Charles Lorraine is mentally retarded.

“These records are fair game,” LuWayne Annos, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said Monday after the 11th District Court of Appeals ruled earlier in the day that all materials can be used to determine whether Lorraine is mentally retarded.

Lorraine was convicted in November 1986 of killing Raymond Montgomery, 77, and his wife, Doris, 80, in their home on Haymaker Avenue Northwest in Warren.

The 11th District Court affirmed the conviction in 1990, as did the Ohio Supreme Court in 1993.

In June 2002, however, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Atkins v. Virginia, holding that the execution of mentally retarded people violates the Eighth Amendment’s safeguard against cruel and unusual punishment.

The high court left it to the states to determine the precise standards and procedures.

Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court dismissed Lorraine’s claim that he is mentally retarded and should be spared the death penalty.

In a 2005 ruling, the appeals court ruled that Lorraine was not afforded a full opportunity to litigate his claim of mental retardation.

Lorraine, now 41, then asserted that his prison records that are sealed shouldn’t be used during a hearing to determine if he is mentally retarded.

Judge Mary Jane Trapp, writing for the 11th District Court, said that all evidence, including his prison records which include his mental health records, can be used to determine his mental status.

Annos said that neither the prosecution, the court nor Lorraine knows what is contained in the prison records. They will be used by experts to determine if he is retarded.

She pointed out that it was Lorraine who wanted the hearing before Judge Logan, who ordered his records unsealed, and then decided that he didn’t want them used to make the determination.

“They could be useful; they could be useless,” Annos said.

The appellate court also ruled that Lorraine’s juvenile records — those before age 18 — can be used to make the determination of retardation.

“It’s a good opinion for the state,” Annos said, and could be used against two other men sentenced to death in Trumbull County — Danny Lee Hill and Andre Williams.

They too have raised the mental retardation defense.

Hill is on death row for the killing of Raymond Fife, a young Warren boy, in 1985. Williams was convicted in 1989 of killing George Melnick, 65, and severely beating Melnick’s wife, Katherine, 65.

yovich@vindy.com