Attorneys meet in '96 murder case

March 24, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Willie Herring Hearing

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains speaks to the media after a hearing Monday for Willie Herring, who is back for resentencing hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ordered by appeals courts after he was sentenced to death for a triple homicide in 1996 for a robbery at the former Newport Inn bar on West Indianola Avenue in Youngstown. Another hearing date has been scheduled in the case.

While attorneys discussed his fate behind closed doors Monday, Willie Herring chatted with friends and family in the Mahoning County Common Pleas courtroom of Judge John Durkin.

Herring, who was convicted of three slayings during a 1996 robbery, was sentenced to death before an appeals court overturned the sentence but not the conviction. He looked at pictures on phones held by family members and also chatted with one of his attorneys for about an hour as a hearing took place to establish how to conduct a new sentencing process.

No action was taken on the record Monday.

Prosecutor Paul Gains said Herring’s case is a unique challenge. That’s because of a change by the state Legislature to allow people to still be sentenced to death — even after their death sentence is vacated — by ordering a new sentencing hearing.

“It’s all new,” Gains said.

A new pretrial hearing has been set for May 28. Gains said one of the reasons for that is because Herring has different attorneys for this phase of the case than he did for the appeal, and they need time to get know the case.

Herring had been convicted of three counts of complicity to commit aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and two counts of aggravated robbery, all with firearm specifications, for the April 30, 1996, robbery and shooting at the Newport Inn, 179 W. Indianola Ave.

Police said Herring and four others attempted to rob the bar and shot five people, three of whom died. They said the robbery was planned at Herring’s home. Herring was 18 at the time of the crime.

A jury recommended he be sentenced to death, and Judge Durkin agreed. But in December, the state Supreme Court vacated his death sentence, saying that improper mitigation was presented by Herring’s defense lawyers to jurors during the mitigation phase of the trial. The high court decision affirmed a similar decision by the 7th District Court of Appeals.

The high court ruled that a new sentencing hearing must take place to determine if Herring should receive the death penalty. Gains said Monday that would entail swearing in a new jury as it hears arguments on why Herring should be put to death and from his lawyers as to why his life should be spared. He said a new proceeding simply would be to decide what sentence Herring should be given, not about his guilt or innocence.

Previously, if a sentencing hearing was vacated, a defendant was brought back and resentenced to either 20 years to life in prison or 30 years to life in prison, Gains said.

Gains said he also is concerned about the two surviving victims in the case, both of whom he said have been contacted by his office and kept abreast of developments, and he wants to wrap it up as quickly as he can to give them some closure.

“There has to be some finality here,” Gains said.