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Trial date set for armed-robbery suspect
Appellate judges sent the robbery case back to Judge Sweeney.
YOUNGS-TOWN — An armed robbery suspect who was freed from jail last September will go on trial next month.
On Thursday, Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, set an April 28 jury trial for Christopher Williams, 20, of Detroit Avenue. A final pre-trial hearing will be at 8:45 a.m. April 4.
In her written order, Judge Sweeney did not specify how much time remains on the speedy-trial clock for Williams, who remains free.
On Sept. 10, 2007, Judge Sweeney granted a defense motion to dismiss an aggravated robbery charge with a firearm specification against Williams and ordered him released from county jail.
Williams is charged with robbing an 80-year-old West Side man of his keys and cellular phone Dec. 28, 2006, as the victim was leaving a Zedaker Street residence on the city’s South Side.
Because Williams had been jailed since the day of the robbery, his lawyer, Lynn Maro, requested the dismissal because he hadn’t been brought to trial within the required 90 days of his arrest.
But Robert J. Andrews, assistant county prosecutor, argued 12 days remained on the 90-day speedy-trial clock because defense motions and Judge Sweeney’s being engaged in other trials had stopped the clock numerous times.
The prosecution appealed the dismissal, and a three-judge panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals unanimously sent the case back to Judge Sweeney for a hearing to determine how much time remains on the speedy-trial clock.
With Williams sitting at the defense table, Judge Sweeney had the hearing Wednesday, taking the matter under advisement and issuing her written ruling Thursday, setting the pretrial and trial dates.
Wednesday’s dispute centered on the timeliness and thoroughness of evidence-sharing, known as discovery, between the prosecution and defense and its effect on the elapsed speedy trial time.
Ralph Rivera, an assistant county prosecutor, said the prosecution provided discovery Feb. 22, 2007, and Maro failed to reciprocate until Aug. 28, but Maro said the prosecution’s Feb. 22 discovery packet was incomplete because it lacked a list of prosecution witnesses and their criminal records, if any.
Rivera said 54 days remained on the speedy-trial clock.
Maro said, however, “There are 104 days here that the defendant had been held in excess of the required 90 days.”
“This court finds that both parties failed to comply with discovery,” Judge Sweeney wrote in her order.
The judge also imposed sanctions on the prosecutor’s office. “The court finds that the least-severe sanction is for the prosecutor’s office to pay the costs of this action and the costs of defense,” she wrote.
Michael J. McBride, an assistant county prosecutor, has asked Judge Sweeney to issue a warrant for Williams’ re-arrest pending trial and reinstatement of his previous $50,000 bond. As of late Thursday, the judge had not ruled on his request.