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Newport Inn resentencing set
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. today before Judge John M. Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
A pretrial hearing that had been set for Wednesday 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.
The top court vacated the death sentence because it said Herring’s 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.
The jury convicted Herring 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.
The top court decision affirmed a similar decision by the 7th District Court of Appeals.
Three Newport Inn patrons were shot to death: Herman Naze, Jimmie Lee Jones and Dennis Kotheimer.
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 residence to plan the robbery.
Herring issued guns to three of them before the masked robbers stormed the bar, which was at 179 W. Indianola Ave. on the city’s South Side, demanded money and began shooting.