Retrial pending in ’06 homicide

By D.A. WILKINSON

wilkinson@vindy.com

LISBON

Starting this week, Andrew Irwin, accused of homicide, will begin the process of going on trial for a second time.

Columbiana County Prosecutor Robert Herron said Friday, “We start the whole case again.”

He is to meet with public defender Gregory Meyers and Columbiana County Common Pleas Court Judge C. Ashley Pike, who presided at the original trial. Judge Pike will preside at the second trial.

The date for the retrial has not been set.

Herron said they will discuss routine matters, including scheduling. Atty. Meyers could not be reached.

Irwin had been convicted of stabbing Emily Foreman to death over drugs in Liverpool Township on Aug. 23, 2006.

He was defended by Atty. George Kafantaris of Warren, who was permanently disbarred by the Ohio Supreme Court on April 1, 2009, for misappropriating clients’ funds and other acts of misconduct.

Seventh District Court of Appeals Judge Gene Donofrio wrote in his 42-page opinion issued late last year that Kafantaris’ numerous errors throughout the trial and a motion for a new trial resulted in “both ineffective assistance of counsel and cumulative error wanting reversal.”

In a call to police on the day of the slaying, a person who said he was “Andy” said there had been a stabbing. He told police that a woman had attacked him.

Foreman had been stabbed multiple times, including in the lungs, but was able to talk to police before she was taken to East Liverpool City Hospital, where she died. Both she and Irwin were involved with drugs, officials said.

Irwin has been returned to the Columbiana County jail while the retrial is pending.