Trumbull prosecutor continues claims against overturning Hamad conviction

WARREN

The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office argued in a Friday filing there was plenty of evidence that Nasser Hamad was guilty of aggravated murder of two young men who went to his house in Howland in 2017 and there was no reason for the judge to instruct jurors that they could find him guilty of lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter.

The office’s response to the appeal arguments Hamad’s attorney filed earlier said case law didn’t allow Hamad’s attorney to present expert testimony from a psychologist that Hamad suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the shootings.

Hamad, who lived on state Route 46 near the Eastwood Mall complex, was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison last November for shooting to death two people and injuring three others who went to his house Feb. 25, 2017, as part of an ongoing dispute.

Hamad’s family apparently wishes to continue with the appeal despite Hamad’s death in September at age 49 while being treated for cancer in a prison hospital.

Hamad’s appeals attorney, Samuel Shamansky of Columbus, argued that Judge Ronald Rice’s not allowing jurors to consider voluntary manslaughter instead of aggravated murder was the foremost reason Hamad’s convictions and sentence should be overturned.

The lesser manslaughter charge is for killing someone when “under the influence of sudden passion or in a sudden fit of rage brought on by serious provocation by the victim that was reasonably sufficient to incite the person to use deadly force,” prosecutors said.

Read more about the case in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.