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Tate case ends with manslaughter plea
As bitter as it seems, manslaughter is the proper charge, an assistant prosecutor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — The capital murder case of Terrance Tate was pending for 21‚Ñ2 years, but it abruptly ended within minutes in a guilty plea and a 15-year prison sentence just after 95 potential trial jurors arrived for their orientation.
Immediately after Tate pleaded guilty Friday morning to involuntary manslaughter and child endangering, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum sentenced him to 15 years in prison in the death of a 1-year-old boy.
Tate, 23, of Hilton Avenue, was charged in the beating death of his girlfriend’s son, Javonte Covington, on April 27, 2006 — his first birthday.
The Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge imposed maximum consecutive sentences of 10 years for involuntary manslaughter and five years for child endangering, for a total of 15 years. Tate will get credit for the 928 days he has already been jailed. After prison, Tate will be on parole for five years.
Tate was originally indicted on an aggravated murder charge with a death-penalty specification attached to it because of the victim’s youth. Tate’s plea and sentence came just before jury selection for his trial would have begun Monday.
In the plea agreement, the prosecution agreed to reduce the aggravated murder charge to involuntary manslaughter and to drop the death-penalty specification, but it added the child endangering charge as a bill of information.
Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor, said he made the agreement because, as the case progressed, it became clear that medical experts would have testified that the baby would have lived if his mother had taken him to the hospital sooner.
“That being the case, it’s not a purposeful death,” which would support an aggravated murder charge, said Desmond. “He didn’t purposely cause it. What he did is more of a proximate cause death.”
“Proximate cause means that, but for Terrance Tate beating this child, the child would not have died. That takes it down to a manslaughter charge,” Desmond explained. “As bitter as it may seem, it’s the proper charge legally.”
Javonte’s father, John Covington of Youngstown, who agreed with the plea deal, said: “I’m a little disappointed ... There were factors that came up at the last minute, and we had no other choice.”
If Tate had gone to trial, he would likely have been convicted of some offense less than aggravated murder, Covington said.
Tate’s sentence is nonappealable because it was agreed to by the prosecution and defense and adopted by the judge.
Tate made no statement in court, and the defense lawyers and members of his family declined to comment after court.
Javonte’s mother, April Ford, 28, of Griffith Street, who had earlier pleaded guilty to child endangering and had agreed to testify against Tate in his trial, will be sentenced at 2 p.m. Dec. 3 by Judge John M. Durkin.
The prosecution recommended a four-year prison term for her, but her sentencing was deferred until the conclusion of Tate’s case.
Much of the delay in trial court action in Tate’s case stemmed from the prosecution’s appeal of the suppression of Tate’s confession to police.