Youngstown killer gets 13 years

YOUNGSTOWN -- A judge has imposed a 13-year prison term on a Hayman Street man who pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in the October 2005 slaying of a Clarencedale Avenue man.
Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the sentence on Marketis Stevens, 26, in the fatal shooting of Donald Hudson at the Westlake Terrace housing project.
Stevens, who apologized to Hudson's family in court, will serve 10 years for voluntary manslaughter, plus three years consecutively for the firearm specification. A five-year term for being a felon in possession of a firearm will be served during the manslaughter sentence.
Robert Andrews, assistant county prosecutor, had recommended the maximum sentence, which would have been 18 years, but Stevens' lawyer, Thomas Zena, asked the judge to impose 10 years. Stevens will get credit for time he's been jailed since his arrest in June 2006.
Zena cited witness statements that Hudson sought out and confronted Stevens over a dispute concerning drug dealing and that both Hudson and Stevens were armed.
"This is not a case of self-defense," Andrews said, noting that Hudson was shot three times, including once in the back. "This case cries out for the maximum" sentence, he added.
"He shouldn't be getting 18 years. I think he should be getting life," the victim's father, Donald Hudson Sr. of Stone Mountain, Ga., said of Stevens. However, the judge said she could not legally impose a life sentence.