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Appeals court upholds convictions and sentence of Nasser Hamad, who died last year
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The 11th District Court of Appeals has affirmed the conviction and sentence of Nasser Hamad, who was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison for shooting five people at his home on state Route 46 in Howland on Feb. 25, 2017, killing two young men.
Hamad, 49, died in prison Sept. 9, 2018, of kidney cancer, 10 months after being convicted of two counts of aggravated murder and six counts of attempted murder. He killed Joshua Haber, 19, and Joshua Williams, 20, and injured April Trent-Vokes, 42, Bryce Hendrickson and John Shively, 17. Williams and Hendrickson were from Warren. The others were related to Williams and Hendrickson but had recently moved to the area from Florida.
The appellate court ruled against all the claims Hamad’s defense attorney gave for why Hamad’s convictions and sentence were unjust.
First among them was Hamad’s offenses better represented the lesser offense of 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 of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court declined to give jurors an instruction they could convict Hamad of voluntary manslaughter.
The appellate 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.”
The confrontation followed vulgar and threatening messages Hamad and two of the young men exchanged earlier that day on Facebook. The messages followed months of other confrontations involving Hamad and his girlfriend’s family, including her son, Hendrickson.
After the five drove to Hamad’s house to confront him, there was a physical fight in the front yard. After it was over and the five were returning to their van near the street, Hamad went in the house, got a gun and fired at them. When he ran out of bullets, he returned to the house, reloaded, then returned to the van to fire more shots.
The appellate judges quoted from Judge Rice’s remarks at Hamad’s sentencing: “Mr. Hamad, you had choices that day” that would have prevented anyone from being killed. “You dismissed each and every one of those viable options.”
The reviewing court also disagreed with Hamad’s attorney that Judge Rice should have allowed expert testimony that Hamad suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by months of threats and the fight that preceded the shootings.