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Lawyer wants evidence tossed in '13 homicide case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
A lawyer for a man accused of a 2013 stabbing death is asking Judge John Durkin to toss out evidence and statements against his client.
At a suppression hearing Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, attorneys haggled over whether Theodore Alexander, 58, of Hilton Avenue, had his rights read to him and the procedures detectives used to get evidence after the killing of Ivan West, 28, of Liberty, on Sept. 29, 2013, inside Alexander’s upstairs apartment at 107 Hilton Ave.
Detective Sgt. Ronald Rodway was the only witness, detailing under cross-examination how he was called to the crime scene and interviewed Alexander briefly at the crime scene and then at the police department. While at the police department, he asked for a shirt Alexander was wearing because it may have had blood on it.
Alexander was released that night and questioned a few weeks later after he was an inmate at the county jail, where he was jailed on a probation violation for an unrelated charge.
Rodway said at no time was Alexander under arrest in the shooting. He also said that Alexander told detectives about the blood on his shirt the night he was interviewed.
Inside Alexander’s apartment, police took three knives into evidence and also swabbed a spot on the sink they thought was blood but later was found not to be blood.
John B. Juhasz, Alexander’s lawyer, asked if Rodway had a warrant to take the knives, and he said no. Rodway said the knives were found by patrol officers who checked the apartment for other suspects or victims. He said police can recover some items without a warrant if the circumstances are extraordinary.
Rodway also said under cross-examination by Juhasz that when Alexander was questioned the second time, he was brought over from the jail. Though he was not under arrest for the West killing at the time, he still was an inmate.
Rodway also said he did not post an officer to wait to secure a search warrant or ask a woman Alexander was living with if she would allow police to search the apartment.
Judge Durkin will watch detectives’ interviews with Alexander, which were videotaped by police, before issuing a ruling.