Judge refuses to take death penalty off the table

Judge refuses to take death penalty off the table

The death-penalty murder trial has been postponed until May 5.

YOUNGSTOWN — The trial judge has overruled a defense motion to drop the death-penalty specification against Bennie Adams.

The defense argued unsuccessfully the death specification should be dismissed because Ohio’s lethal injection method of execution is an unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

But the judge granted a defense motion to postpone Adams’ jury trial to give the defense more trial preparation time. The trial is now reset from March 31 to May 5.

Adams, 50, of Hollywood Avenue, is charged with the Dec. 29, 1985, strangulation death of Gina Tenney, a 19-year-old Youngstown State University student from Ashtabula.

The Mahoning County prosecutor’s office said DNA evidence preserved from Tenney’s body was matched recently with a sample of Adams’ DNA, leading to Adams’ indictment in the 22-year-old case last October.

In declining to dismiss the specification, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum observed the 7th District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court have upheld lethal injection. The Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge ruled after reviewing written prosecution and defense briefs and hearing oral arguments Thursday from both sides.

Adams is charged with aggravated murder with a death-penalty specification, rape, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. The death specification alleges Adams killed Tenney while committing the other crimes against her.

The body of Tenney, who lived upstairs from Adams in an Ohio Avenue apartment on Youngstown’s North Side, was found floating in the Mahoning River near West Avenue the day after she was slain.

Although Adams was initially a suspect, he wasn’t charged then with killing her because of lack of evidence.