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Prosecutors to seek death penalty again for Herring
YOUNGSTOWN
Prosecutors once again will seek the death penalty for Willie Herring, who was convicted of the murders of three people and attempted murders of two others during the April 30, 1996, Newport Inn robbery on the city’s South Side.
A new penalty-determination phase has been scheduled for November after a 4-3 Ohio Supreme Court decision last December vacated Herring’s death sentence.
“The offenses were heinous,” said Ralph Rivera, an assistant county prosecutor, who is prosecuting the case with his boss, Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains.
“Three people were murdered, and two were nearly killed but miraculously survived,” Rivera said.
“The original jury recommended death, and the judge imposed the death penalty,” Rivera said. “The facts of the case haven’t changed.”
The state’s top court vacated Herring’s death sentence because it said Herring’s lawyers failed to thoroughly and adequately investigate Herring’s background to determine which mitigating factors to present to the jury during the penalty phase of his trial.
Rivera, Gains and four public defenders representing Herring met with Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who presided over the original trial, in the judge’s chambers Thursday afternoon for a status conference.
The public defenders declined to comment after the conference.
An orientation for some 100 potential jurors is set for Nov. 5 for a new penalty-determination phase, and prospective jurors will be interviewed individually and out of earshot of other potential jurors beginning Nov. 9.
After hearing witness testimony, jurors will choose between death, 30 years to life in prison and 20 years to life in prison.
Deadlines are June 10 for filing defense motions and July 2 for prosecution responses to them, with a pretrial hearing set for 1:30 p.m. July 13, Gains said.
In the shooting, three bar patrons – Herman Naze, Jimmie Lee Jones and Dennis Kotheimer – died.
Bar owner Ron Marinelli, who was bartending that night, and Debbie Aziz, a patron, survived being shot.
Herring, then 18, and five others had met at Herring’s house to plan the robbery.
Herring gave guns to three of them before the masked robbers stormed the Indianola Avenue bar, demanded money and started shooting.