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Attorneys: Reprimand should be heard
YOUNGSTOWN
Attorneys defending a city man charged with capital murder said the jury should hear about a recent reprimand against the lead detective in the investigation.
The judge overseeing the trial, however, has ruled the two cases are unrelated.
Lorenza Barnette, 29, of Lora Avenue, and two other men are charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and arson in the Aug. 11, 2009, deaths of Jaron L. Roland, 20, of Fairmont Avenue, and his cousin, Darry B. Woods-Burt Jr., 19, of the city’s North Side.
Barnette, defended by lawyers J. Gerald Ingram and Ronald Yarwood, is on trial this week before Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Barnette’s co-defendants, Kenneth Moncrief, 26, of Fairgreen Avenue, and Joseph Moreland, 28, of Mahoning County jail, are scheduled for later trial dates.
Testimony in Barnette’s trial resumes today.
Youngstown Police Lt. John Kelty was the lead investigator in the homicide and expected to be called to the witness stand by prosecutors, but defense attorneys said he should not be permitted to testify because he had recently been reprimanded for his actions in another case.
Kelty, in September, was investigated by the police department’s internal affairs division and ultimately given a 15-day suspension for receiving compensation for supervising a crime scene when he was not there.
He instead supervised the situation via telephone.
Ingram and Yarwood told the court that Kelty’s actions show the officer is willing to be less than truthful — speaking directly to the officer’s character. They argued the jury should be told about the incident.
Judge Sweeney, in a ruling issued Tuesday, overruled the defense motion.
The judge said the reprimand is not related to the investigation into the crimes to which Barnette is charged.
Judge Sweeney also said the IAD determined Kelty acted improperly and unprofessionally, but not untruthfully as asserted by the defense.
Testimony in the case Tuesday centered on witnesses from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification.
Ingram and Yarwood told the court DNA population- frequency estimates should not be presented to the jury because they are generated by FBI personnel and not subject to cross-examination.
Judge Sweeney again overruled the defense motion to strike the testimony, saying the statistical DNA information is not held to the standard referenced by the defense.
Prosecutors contend that Barnette and the two other men held the victims captive in a North Side home, where they were beaten and suffocated before being taken to another location and left in a burning car.
A witness told the court the two men begged for their lives.
Prosecutors told the jury one of the men charged was upset because he believed one of the victims was a “snitch.”
Ingram, however, said the prosecution’s case will rely in part on two people facing criminal charges unrelated to the slayings, who say they witnessed the killings, but whose testimony is filled with “substantial inconsistencies.”