Judge Durkin reinstates bond in baby-killing case
Terrance Tate, of Youngstown.
Judge John Durkin listens to testimony - Terrance Tate, whose confession was suppressed by the 7th District Court of Appeals, 8:30 a.m. The prosecution is appealing the suppression to the Ohio Supreme Court. Tate faces the death penalty.
The inmate’s talk of leaving town brought back the higher bond.
YOUNGSTOWN — The bond for a suspect in the killing of a baby has fluctuated for the third consecutive week.
Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court reinstated Terrance Tate’s original $150,000 bond Monday. The judge said he was taking the action based on what the prosecution said was a recorded telephone statement by Tate to his mother that he planned to leave town if released from Mahoning County Jail.
At the request of the defense, Judge Durkin had reduced Tate’s bond from $150,000 to $75,000 in a July 8 hearing, saying Tate would be on electronically monitored house arrest with strict conditions if he makes bond.
Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor, was unsuccessful Monday in his renewed request that Judge Durkin set Tate’s bond at $1 million, which Desmond said was commensurate with bonds in other pending death-penalty murder cases here.
In a Friday emergency bond hearing held while Judge Durkin was on vacation, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum ordered Tate held in jail without bond until Judge Durkin, who will preside over Tate’s trial, could decide what bond would be appropriate.
Tate, 23, of Hilton Avenue, faces an aggravated murder charge with a death-penalty specification in the fatal beating of Javonte Covington on his first birthday in April 2006.
The prosecution had asked Judge Krichbaum to revoke Tate’s bond because it said it acquired new evidence in the form of a reported confession Tate made in a May 21, 2006, telephone call from the jail to his mother.
In that call, he told his mother he took the blame for the baby’s injuries, thinking he was only facing an assault charge. Tate also said in that call that he didn’t know that Javonte had died until he was jailed.
Desmond told Judge Krichbaum on Friday that this evidence strengthened the prosecution’s case, thereby increasing the likelihood that Tate would flee if he were to be released.
Javonte’s father, John Covington of Youngstown, said after court Monday that he was “very happy” and “very satisfied” with the prosecution’s new evidence. “You confessed to it. You did it. Now we’ve got recordings. I mean it doesn’t get any better than this,” he said, referring to Tate.
In Monday’s hearing before Judge Durkin, Tate’s lawyer, John B. Juhasz, said Tate’s May 21, 2006, statement about taking the blame did not constitute a confession.
Dawn Cantalamessa, assistant county prosecutor, said she had discovered this past weekend that Tate told his mother in another May 2006 statement in a phone call from the jail that he planned to leave for Washington, D.C., or Florida if he were to be released.
But Juhasz said his client had whispered to him during Monday’s hearing that he only meant he planned to relocate after the case against him is over.
Judge Durkin said an evidentiary hearing is needed to evaluate the prosecution’s new evidence and determine whether it would be admissible in a trial.
So far, Cantalamessa said she has listened to almost 15 hours of Tate’s telephone calls from jail and has heard only those made through mid-June 2006. Tate made about five calls a day from jail, each lasting up to 15 minutes, Cantalamessa added.
Desmond said after court that it would likely take the prosecutor’s office two months to listen to all of Tate’s calls from jail, provide them to the defense lawyers and prepare for a full evidentiary hearing.
The prosecution is appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court the exclusion from evidence of Tate’s confession to police, which the prosecution had said was critical to its case.
Judge Durkin had reduced the bond to $75,000 after the Seventh District Court of Appeals upheld his ruling that Tate’s confession to police was inadmissible as evidence in Tate’s trial. While Tate was in their custody, police improperly failed to warn him of his right to remain silent before they questioned him about Javonte’s injuries, the appeals court ruled.