Court upholds death sentence in ’88 murder

The death row inmate’s psychologist says he’s not mentally retarded.

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — The 11th District Court of Appeals has upheld the death sentence for a Trumbull County murder.

Andre Williams, 41, was convicted in 1989 of killing George Melnick, 65, and severely beating Melnick’s wife, Katherine, 65, in 1988 in Warren, and sentenced to death by Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

In 2002, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional to execute people who are mentally retarded, Williams filed a petition in common pleas court stating that his death sentenced should be vacated on those grounds. Judge McKay granted a judgment to the state, and against Williams.

Williams then filed an action with the appellate court.

The Supreme Court adopted three criteria for establishing mental retardation. They are significant sub-average intellectual functioning; significant limitations in two or more adapting skills such as communications, self-care and self-direction; and onset before age 18, the appellate court said in its opinion.

In his appeal, Williams called attention to his trial and information from the director of services to special-education pupils in Warren City Schools. To qualify for the programs, a pupil must have an IQ of 80 or below and be deficient in two areas of adaptive behavior.

In 2003, however, Dr. Kenneth E. Covey, a state prison employee, said Williams functions at a “level far above that of mental retardation.”

Williams’ own forensic psychologist, Dr. James Eisenberg of Painesville, reported that Williams is impaired in all areas of intellectual functioning, but his testing does not place him in the mentally retarded range of intelligence.

The appellate court ruled Monday that Williams failed to raise a genuine issue as to the three criteria for mental retardation specified by the Supreme Court.

The appellate court acknowledged that Williams’ IQ in 1983 was 67, which is below the score of 70 at which he would be presumed not mentally retarded.

But the Ohio Supreme Court has emphasized “substantial limitations in present functioning.”

The appellate court pointed to Williams’ own psychologist saying that Williams “does not currently meet the criteria for a diagnosis of mental retardation.”