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Man sentenced to 15 years to life in slaying of neighbor
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Darold Shorter, 41, was arraigned Friday morning for the killing of Lamont Brown, 33. He was already in jail on an unrelated criminal charge when the arrest warrant was issued. The victim was found stabbed to death in his home on Earle Avenue on Jan. 28.
YOUNGSTOWN
A 42-year-old city man has received a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life in prison for the murder of his 33-year-old neighbor.
Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the prison time on Darold Shorter of East Earle Avenue, in the Jan. 28, 2010, stabbing death of Lamont Brown, also of Earle Avenue.
Shorter drew the prison time Monday after a jury convicted him of the murder after deliberating for just over an hour Thursday.
Prosecutors said Shorter stabbed Brown 35 times in the back, stomach, neck and face after Brown refused to give him more money or other assistance to support himself and his family.
“You were not a friend to him. ... You were a leech,” the victim’s brother, Janerall Brown of Youngstown, told Shorter in court. “When you couldn’t get anything else, you drew blood.”
“Lamont Brown was a friend to Darold Shorter, but Darold Shorter was no friend to him,” Rebecca Doherty, an assistant county prosecutor, told the judge.
“I had a choice, and I chose wrong,” Shorter said, apologizing to members of the Brown family as they sat in the courtroom.
“There’s no justification for what you did and no excuse for what you did,” Judge D’Apolito replied before imposing the sentence.
After court, Janerall Brown emphatically denied Shorter’s assertion to police that Shorter became enraged because Lamont Brown backed out of a drug deal, leaving him destitute.
Doherty, who prosecuted the case, said after court there is “absolutely no evidence” to support Shorter’s claim concerning a drug deal.
Shorter’s lawyer, Douglas King, said the conviction will be appealed on the grounds that his client’s confession shouldn’t have been admitted into evidence because it was improperly obtained.
King said the appeal also will assert that Shorter should have been convicted of the lesser offense of manslaughter because he killed in a fit of rage under provocation from the victim.
Shorter will be on parole for five years after he leaves prison.