Jurors deliberate in two separate cases
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Jurors found one man guilty Thursday of a shooting in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in one criminal case, and another jury will return this morning to deliberate the fate of another man on a murder charge.
In the courtroom of Judge John M. Durkin, jurors found Terrance Craig, 26, guilty of felonious assault for wounding a man Oct. 30 during a shooting in the parking lot of the Austintown Walmart on Mahoning Avenue and a second count of felonious assault for pistol-whipping his girlfriend. Sentencing has not been set.
Jurors began deliberations after 11 a.m. before arriving at a verdict late Thursday afternoon.
An Austintown police officer testified earlier this week that Craig’s girlfriend told him the day of the shooting that Craig, of Campbell, shot a man from Columbus in the Walmart parking lot after she had spent the night with the victim, whom she had met online the previous week.
Defense attorney Walter Madison had strongly objected to the testimony because the girlfriend never showed up for court and was not available to testify, but prosecutors asked that it be admitted under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule, and Judge Durkin ruled in their favor.
Before Judge Anthony D’Apolito, jurors deliberated all afternoon before being sent home at 5:35 p.m. in the case of Jermaine Tubbs, 28, who is charged with murder in the April 10, 2017, shooting death of Michael Brooks, 52, on DuPont Circle. Jurors return at 9 a.m. today to continue their deliberations.
Prosecutors say Tubbs killed Brooks when Brooks came to the DuPont Circle apartment to help his daughter, who was dating Tubbs, leave him.
Tubbs testified Wednesday that Brooks was beating him with a cane. He shot Brooks in self-defense because he feared for his life, he said.
Both trials began Monday.