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Confession matter set for hearing
The suspect also confessed to a fellow inmate, prosecutors told the judge.
YOUNGSTOWN — Having dropped its appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, the prosecution is again asking a trial judge to allow a murder suspect’s confession to police to be introduced into evidence.
The suspect, Terrance Tate, 23, of Hilton Avenue, 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 to begin Nov. 3 before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who will have a hearing at 11 a.m. Oct. 1 concerning Tate’s confession.
Judge John M. Durkin, also of the county common pleas court, who was previously assigned to the Tate case, excluded Tate’s confession from trial evidence.
Judge Durkin excluded it because he said police failed to warn Tate of his right to remain silent before they questioned him about the baby’s injuries while he was in police custody.
A three-judge panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Judge Durkin’s ruling, and the prosecution appealed the exclusion to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Saying they would proceed to trial with newly discovered evidence, county prosecutors asked the high court last week to dismiss their appeal, and the high court dismissed it Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Judge Krichbaum declined the prosecution’s request that he vacate Judge Durkin’s order, saying he didn’t think he had the authority to do so, nor did he believe he had the authority to reverse the appellate court.
In a Tuesday hearing, Martin P. Desmond, assistant county prosecutor, renewed his request that Judge Krichbaum vacate Judge Durkin’s exclusion order.
In his request, Desmond said Tate not only confessed to a fellow jail inmate that he killed Javonte, but Tate also told that inmate he and his mother worked out a plan to get Tate’s confession to police thrown out. The inmate made his statements in a letter to Desmond, which Desmond submitted to the court.
Tate told the fellow inmate his mother agreed to testify at Judge Durkin’s evidence suppression hearing last year that police held her against her will, thereby compelling Tate to turn himself in at the police station, Desmond said in a court filing.
“An order or judgment cannot stand where the basis for the ruling is wrought with falsehoods,” Desmond argued.
In response to Desmond’s motion, Tate’s lawyers, John B. Juhasz and Lynn Maro, called the inmate’s unsworn statements alleging Tate confessed to him “a desperate attempt by someone serving a lengthy prison sentence to help himself.”
Prosecutors said they also learned this year by listening to county jail phone call tapes that Tate confessed the murder to his mother in a May 2006 call to her from jail.
Prosecutors 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 the suppression hearing. But prosecutors said they didn’t receive that letter until July 2008.
milliken@vindy.com