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Tate’s confession stays suppressed
The trial judge says he can’t reverse a ruling by an appeals court.
YOUNGSTOWN — Judge R. Scott Krichbaum has declined to vacate Judge John M. Durkin’s order that suppressed murder suspect Terrance Tate’s confession to police — saying he does not think he has the authority to do so.
Tate is charged with aggravated murder with a death-penalty specification in the fatal beating of Javonte Covington on his first birthday in April 2006. Tate’s jury trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 3 before Krichbaum.
In making the ruling, Krichbaum said he isn’t suggesting his agreement or disagreement with Judge Durkin’s ruling.
He noted, however, a three-judge panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Durkin’s ruling and the prosecution is appealing the matter to the Ohio Supreme Court. The state’s highest court hasn’t announced whether it will accept the matter for review.
Krichbaum and Durkin are trial judges with Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
“The state, in essence, is asking this court to reverse the court of appeals. This court is of the opinion that it is without authority to do so,” Krichbaum wrote.
Durkin, who was previously assigned the Tate case, excluded Tate’s confession to city police because he said the police failed to warn Tate of his right to remain silent before questioning him about the baby’s injuries while he was in police custody.
In Monday’s six-page ruling, Krichbaum reaffirmed his announcement at a hearing last week he was overruling a defense motion that Tate be freed from jail.
Tate’s lawyer, John B. Juhasz, argued Tate should be freed unless the prosecution can produce newly discovered and admissible evidence it couldn’t have found earlier.
Krichbaum, however, said the prosecution believed it had a strong case based on Tate’s confession and two people it said were eyewitnesses to the crime.
After the appellate court upheld the suppression of the confession in June 2008, Krichbaum wrote that prosecutors were compelled to seek other evidence, including recorded telephone calls Tate made from jail to his mother, in which Tate referred to a letter he wrote to Durkin.
Prosecutors said Tate confessed the crime to his mother in a May 2006 telephone call to her from the jail. They also said Tate’s May 2006 letter to Judge Durkin, in which he wrote he was “tricked’’ into confessing to police, could have been used to impeach Tate’s testimony at Durkin’s suppression hearing, but prosecutors didn’t receive that letter until July 2008.
“The prosecution has shown to the satisfaction of this court that it is now in possession of newly discovered evidence that the state could not, with reasonable diligence, have discovered before,” Krichbaum ruled.