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Judge recesses court so defendant can apologize
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
How hard is it to say “I’m sorry”?
For Jayquawn Manigault, a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge had to recess a sentencing hearing Monday so he could figure out how to say it.
The 23-year-old Manigault, who was being sentenced for breaking into a home and taking a television in 2014 and having a gun during a bank robbery on Market Street in 2015, conferred with his lawyer Rhys Cartwright-Jones for several minutes during the recess before Judge Shirley J. Christian came back on the bench.
Cartwright-Jones wanted sentences in both cases to run concurrent to a 100-month federal prison sentence for the same bank robbery for which Manigault was charged with illegally having a firearm. But Judge Christian said she was inclined to agree with assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp who said his apologies earlier in court were not sincere, mainly because Manigault talked about himself and his family and not the victims of his crimes.
“I want to hear you say how you’re sorry about what you did without it being about you,” Judge Christian said.
In the end, the judge gave him the concurrent sentence.
Manigault told the judge he feels bad that he caused his victims fear and made them feel afraid in their own home.
“I can now see that this is how they feel because of my actions,” Manigault said.
Judge Christian said she believed Manigault and acknowledged that he probably was scared and nervous and had trouble putting that into words, something which Cartwright-Jones also had argued earlier.
The break-in Manigault was accused of taking part in was Oct. 30, 2014, on LeMans Drive in Boardman, where he was indicted for breaking into a home and taking a television while a man was there. He pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated burglary and robbery in that case.
But while on bond in that case, Manigault was accused of the February 2015 robbery of a Chase Bank on Market Street. While he was prosecuted in federal court for the actual robbery, he was charged in common pleas court with being a felon in possession of a firearm, because he had a gun during that robbery. He pleaded guilty to that charge as well.
Earlier, Manigault had told the judge that he was sorry because he now realizes how being locked away for more than eight years will affect his family and three children.
But Trapp said Manigault did not mention any of the victims in any of the crimes and because of that, he was thinking of recommending that the three-year sentence for the weapons charge be run consecutively to the federal sentence, instead of concurrently.
Judge Christian agreed, and said before she granted the recess that she wanted to hear from Manigault why he was sorry.
“I want to hear a sentence that doesn’t start with ‘I,’ or ‘me,’” Judge Christian said.
She waited for several minutes in silence as Manigault clasped his hands in front of him as if he were praying before she asked him if he wanted to speak to his lawyer, and she recessed court.