Appeals court reduces term in assault on cops
The court rejected Franklin’s claim of error regarding the sole black juror.
YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals has reduced the prison term of a man convicted of firing an assault rifle at police from a car in a rolling gunbattle on the city’s East Side more than three years ago.
In a ruling issued Friday, a three-judge panel of the appellate court unanimously reduced Craig Franklin Jr.’s sentence from the 105 years imposed in August 2007 by Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to 75 years.
Franklin, 20, of Glenwood Avenue, was convicted by a jury of seven counts of felonious assault, one for each police officer he shot at July 1, 2005. He drew the maximum sentence of 10 years on each count, with all seven terms imposed consecutively for a total of 70 years. The appeals court affirmed Franklin’s conviction and left that part of Judge Evans’ sentence intact.
But the appeals court struck down Judge Evans’ imposition of the seven consecutive five-year motor-vehicle firearm specifications totaling 35 years. The appellate panel said the firearm specifications should merge into a single five-year term to be served consecutively to the felonious assault sentences because Franklin’s actions “constituted a single transaction.”
The appeals court decision was written by Judge Gene Donofrio, with Judges Cheryl L. Waite and Mary DeGenaro concurring.
Although it ordered the gun specifications to merge, the appeals court rejected the claim that Judge Evans erred by letting the prosecution excuse the sole black juror on the jury panel for Franklin, who is black.
The appellate judges noted that prosecutors had two race-neutral reasons for excusing that juror — the fact that he had been charged with domestic violence and that juror’s assertion that the prosecution’s case would be weakened if there was no corroborating evidence to support the police officers’ testimony.
All seven police officers testified Franklin shot at them, the appeals panel noted.
The appeals court also ruled that Judge Evans properly permitted the prosecutor to ask Franklin about his prior murder conviction when Franklin took the witness stand in his own defense. The panel said Judge Evans properly instructed the jurors that they could consider Franklin’s prior conviction only to evaluate his credibility as a witness.
Judge Evans made Franklin’s sentence in the rolling-gunbattle case consecutive to his 25-years-to-life prison term for robbery and murder stemming from a May 21, 2005, encounter at Atway’s Market on Lexington Avenue.
There, the store owner, acting in self-defense, shot and killed Eric Farmer, 15, of St. Louis Avenue, an accomplice of Franklin’s in the robbery. Prosecutors said Franklin was responsible for Farmer’s death because he knew the store and organized the robbery.