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Shooting mirrors death of infant in 2003 case
YOUNGSTOWN
Nearly a decade ago, also on the city’s East Side, a child was killed when shots from a rifle pierced his room and upended the lives of his parents.
On Monday morning, 8-year-old Bryce Linebaugh was hit in the head by assault rifle fire as he slept in his Maplewood Court residence in the Rockford Village housing development on the East Side.
The shooting mirrors the death of 3-month-old Jiyen C. Dent, who was fatally shot once in the head in a March 2003 drive-by shooting as he sat in his living room baby swing on Rutledge Drive.
Eleven rounds from an assault rifle and several more from a 9 mm handgun were fired from across the street into Jiyen’s parents’ residence and an adjacent house.
In that case, then-Judge Maureen A. Cronin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed on John Drummond the death sentence that had been recommended by the jury that convicted him of aggravated murder.
According to trial testimony, Drummond, 35, now an inmate at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, was a member of the Lincoln Knolls Crips street gang.
In a 4-3 decision in 2006, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld Drummond’s death sentence.
On Dec. 31, 2010, however, in response to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi ordered Drummond’s conviction and death sentence be set aside or that a new trial be conducted within 180 days.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office is appealing her decision to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, where an AG’s office spokesman said his office awaits the setting of a date for oral arguments.
In her decision, Judge Lioi upheld the defense’s request for the writ, saying Judge Cronin violated Drummond’s right to a public trial under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when she improperly closed the courtroom to spectators for one afternoon during the trial.
Judge Cronin closed the courtroom because she said some jurors or witnesses felt threatened by some courtroom spectators.