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Completion of jury’s duties in Hamad case allows parties to talk
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
After jurors in the Nasser Hamad aggravated-murder trial completed their job Wednesday and recommended that Hamad get 30 years to life in prison, Judge Ronald Rice lifted his gag order.
It allowed the jurors, attorneys and other parties to discuss the case freely, which caused Hamad’s brother, Mike Hamad, to express his frustration with the verdict jurors gave his brother Oct. 30.
“Of course I’m happy,” Mike Hamad said of the jury’s not recommending the death penalty, “but we’re not happy with the [guilty] verdict.”
Jurors deliberated only about 90 minutes Oct. 30 before finding Nasser Hamad guilty of two counts of aggravated murder and six counts of attempted aggravated murder and specifications that made him eligible for the death penalty.
By contrast, the same jury deliberated about 101/2 hours Tuesday and Wednesday before recommending a 30 years-to-life prison sentence on each of two counts of aggravated murder. Judge Rice, of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, will sentence Hamad at 1:30 p.m. today.
Chris Becker, assistant county prosecutor, said he believes one of the factors that worked in Hamad’s favor was that he had no previous criminal record.
Still, Becker said he was told the jury of six men and six women was 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty at one point during deliberations.
“It’s still a great result in terms of the sentence,” Becker said of the 30-years-to-life recommendation.
But Mike Hamad said of his brother: “We have an innocent man that just went to jail who used to believe in justice, and justice wasn’t served.
“Now you have the intruders that came to my brother’s property, attacked him, violated him, assaulted him, planned it. The sheriffs know about it. The Howland police know about it. Why aren’t they charged now? So they pick and choose who gets charged? I can’t understand this justice system.”
Wednesday’s sentencing recommendation means Nasser Hamad, 48, of Howland, will not get the two harshest penalties – the death penalty or life in prison without parole. But prosecutors will ask Judge Rice to give Hamad consecutive sentences, Becker said. It means Hamad could get 60 years to life.
Hamad killed two young men and injured three other people who went to his home on state Route 46 on Feb. 25 in a monthslong dispute over Hamad’s girlfriend.
Testimony indicated that April Trent-Vokes, 42, drove one of her sons, John Shively, 17, to Nasser Hamad’s house to confront Hamad about vulgar and threatening Facebook messages Hamad had written to Shively and Shively’s cousin, Bryce Hendrickson, on Feb. 25. The young men also wrote vulgar and threatening messages to Hamad.
Trent-Vokes also brought another son along, Joshua Haber, 19, and picked up Hendrickson and another cousin, Joshua Williams, 20, at Hendrickson’s house. She and Shively got out of her van first, with Trent-Vokes yelling at Hamad, then Hamad tackling Shively to the ground and a fistfight taking place.
The three other males then got out of the van and joined in the fight with Hamad, assaulting him near the front of his house. When that was over, Hamad went into the house, got a gun and approached the five near the road and fired at them. When his bullets ran out, he got more ammunition in the house, returned to the van and fired a second round of shots.
Williams and Haber were killed, and the three others were injured, two seriously.
When Becker was asked why none of the five was charged, he said there would have been a question as to what the charges would be.
Though they went onto Hamad’s property, Becker said it’s apparent that Hamad started the fistfight with Shively.
Becker said he frequently hears that all of the people involved should have been charged, but that would have created problems with getting testimony from the participants.
All of them would have had a Fifth Amendment right not to testify or talk to police, which would have prevented prosecutors from getting a conviction against the person who fired the fatal shots, Becker said.
Furthermore, the reason for criminal laws is to punish people, Becker said. Two of the five are still alive, one of them Trent-Vokes. The other is Shively, who was slightly injured.
“Don’t you think she was punished enough?” Becker said of Trent-Vokes. “She was shot six times, including in the head. She’s still suffering from wounds. She had to literally watch her son die in front of her,” Becker said. Bryce Hendrickson, who died of an apparent drug overdose Sept. 30 at a home in McDonald, was shot in the mouth.
As far as Hamad’s Oct. 30 convictions, Becker said that was “an easy case to prove” for prosecutors. “The defendant had no self-defense claim in this case if you follow Ohio law, which this jury obviously did.” He added, “You can’t reload and claim self-defense.”
Becker said Hamad couldn’t claim self-defense because the “danger was over” at the point where he went back into the house to get his gun.