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Prosecutors urge Ohio Supreme Court to not accept Burke appeal
WARREN
The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office is urging the Ohio Supreme Court to not accept an appeal from Austin T. Burke, sentenced last year to 58 years to life in prison for killing a man and leaving his body in a remote Bristol Township location.
Prosecutors filed a response Monday with the Supreme Court stating that Burke’s argument that cell-tower evidence – used at his trial suggesting his movements the day of the murder – should have been inadmissible at trial.
Prosecutors wrote the Warren-based 11th District Court of Appeals affirmed Burke’s convictions and sentence Jan. 29.
In the response, prosecutors wrote Burke’s appeal “is without merit.” Also, he “failed to demonstrate a substantial constitutional question or a case of great general interest. As such, this court must decline jurisdiction in this matter.”
Burke was convicted last year in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court of killing Brandon Sample, 22, robbing the Pizza Joe’s restaurant in Cortland a short time later and possessing a plastic knife in the county jail while awaiting trial.
Rhys Cartwright-Jones, the attorney who filed Burke’s appeal, said a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the use of locational cellphone data was important to the state’s case. But the appellate court said the high court’s decision was reached after the Burke trial and shouldn’t be imposed retroactively.
“It is clear that the subpoena for [Burke’s] cell site location was appropriately sought under the law at the time,” prosecutors wrote in the Monday filing.
They added: “Any error was harmless as the cell site location information corroborated the testimony of witnesses. Specifically, several witnesses testified that they observed [Burke] with a firearm. Those same witnesses also testified that [Burke] boasted that he shot and killed Brandon, dumped his body on Hatchet Man Road and abandoned his car on the bike path.”