Appeals court affirms conviction of Nasser Hamad

WARREN — The 11th District Court of Appeals has affirmed the conviction and sentence of Nasser Hamad for shooting to death two young men and injuring three other people with gunfire Feb. 25, 2017, at his home in Howland.

Hamad, 49, died in prison Sept. 9, 2018, of kidney cancer. He was sentenced Nov. 8, 2017, in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to 36 years to life for killing Joshua Haber, 19, and Joshua Williams, 20, and injuring April Trent-Vokes, 42, Bryce Hendrickson and John Shively, 17.

Hamad was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder and six counts of attempted murder. The appeals court denied all of the reasons Hamad's attorney argued why his convictions and sentencing were unjust.

First among them was that Hamad's offenses better represented voluntary manslaughter instead of aggravated murder. Voluntary manslaughter describes cases where a person kills in a "sudden passion" or "fit of rage" provoked by the victim, the court said.

But Judge Ronald Rice declined to give jurors in the case an instruction that Hamad could be convicted on lesser voluntary manslaughter charges.

The appeals court supported Judge Rice's decision, saying the provocation of the five people coming to his home was not "reasonably sufficient to incite Hamad into using deadly force."