Killer Willie Herring has Thursday sentencing set

YOUNGSTOWN

Willie Herring, a defendant in the April 30, 1996, robbery and triple murder at the Newport Inn, will have a re-sentencing hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday before Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

A pre-trial hearing that had been set for this afternoon has been cancelled.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains declined to comment in advance of the resentencing.

In May, Ralph Rivera, an assistant county prosecutor, said the prosecution would seek the death penalty.

A new penalty determination phase had been set for next month after a 4-3 Ohio Supreme Court decision last December vacated Herring’s death sentence, but left his conviction intact.

The top court took that action because it said Herring’s original trial lawyers failed to thoroughly and adequately investigate Herring’s background to determine which mitigating factors to present to the jury during the penalty phase.

That jury recommended the death sentence, which Judge Durkin imposed.