Resentencing for Newport Inn triple murder defendant Thursday

YOUNGSTOWN

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

A pretrial hearing that had been set for today afternoon was canceled.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains declined to comment before the resentencing, and Herring’s Columbus-based public defenders could not be reached to comment.

Calling Herring’s crimes “heinous” and saying the facts of the case hadn’t changed, Ralph Rivera, an assistant county prosecutor, had said in May that the prosecution would seek the death penalty this year.

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.