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Man sentenced for gas-station shooting death asks to withdraw plea
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
TaShawn Walker, who pleaded guilty in July to involuntary manslaughter and other crimes in the 2013 shooting death of Richard Rollison IV, has asked that the judge in his case allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.
Walker, 28, who is serving a 17-year sentence in Marion Correctional Institution, filed the request himself, asking Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to allow him to withdraw the plea on several grounds.
One was that the judge didn’t read Walker all of his rights. Another was that his attorney, Lynn Maro, was ineffective by “pressuring him to enter a plea agreement to involuntary manslaughter based upon insufficient evidence to prove his guilt and incorrect advice that self-defense is not [an] available defense to present to a jury.”
Walker had come to Warren from his home in Baytown, Texas, for the funeral of his brother, Taemarr Walker, 24, of Warren, after his brother had been shot and killed by a Warren police officer in a confrontation on Risher Road Southwest Oct. 19, 2013.
But TaShawn Walker, his father and others found themselves at the Sunoco gas station on West Market Street in the early morning of Oct. 26 when Rollison, 24, of Niles, pulled into the station with others.
After words were exchanged among the men, Walker and Rollison both fired handguns, along with two to three others, and Rollison was hit multiple times and later died at the hospital. The shootout was captured on surveillance video.
TaShawn Walker pleaded guilty at his hearing to involuntary manslaughter and other charges, answered all of the questions posed by Judge Kontos and signed his plea agreement. He said “absolutely” when Judge Kontos asked if he was satisfied with his attorney.
But in his motion, Walker argues that the evidence in the case “demonstrated that [he] was not at fault in creating the situation” that led up to the gunfire, and “at the very least, Mr. Walker reacted out of self-defense.”
Chris Becker, the assistant Trumbull County prosecutor who prosecuted the case, filed a reply to the motion, saying the law requires Walker to demonstrate “manifest injustice” in the way a matter was handled before the defendant can be allowed to withdraw his or her plea.
There is a high standard to prove manifest injustice because otherwise, defendants “might be encouraged to plead guilty to test the weight of potential punishment and withdraw the plea if the sentence were unexpectedly severe.”
Judge Kontos has not ruled on Walker’s motion.