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9th District: Akron murder case remanded

TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter

Published: July 26, 2016

A Summit County murder case was recently reversed and remanded by the 9th District Court of Appeals because the trial court’s findings at sentencing conflict with the journal entry.

Dimitry T. White was convicted of the July 11, 2014 killing of Anthony Thomas, who was found dead of a gunshot wound in the back yard of a known drug house at 1007 Cole Ave. in Akron, according to case summary.

A neighbor who heard the gunshots and witnessed a suspicious person walking quickly down the street called police, who issued an arrest warrant for White after an investigation.

Most of the state’s witnesses were known drug users and prostitutes. The victim, a drug dealer, was not well liked, several witnesses testified.

They also told the jury that a few days before the murder, the victim had locked White and fellow drug dealer Marlin Smith out of the home because he wanted to be in charge of the drug house.

One man said he saw White threaten Thomas with a gun that day, but the victim escaped through a second-story window.

The day of the murder, witnesses from inside the drug house testified that an intruder wearing red clothes had entered the home and then left after going through each room. They then heard gunshots shortly afterward.

Several witnesses later identified White as the person who had entered the home, despite the fact that his face was covered.

A jailhouse informant also testified that White confessed to killing the victim.

Several other witnesses testified for the defense, including White’s niece who provided an alibi that White was with her and her mother the entire night of the murder.

Under cross-examination, the niece admitted she was getting high the night of the murder.

Another defense witness claimed that a state witness did drugs before her testimony and lied on the stand about White’s involvement.

A jury convicted White of aggravated murder with a firearm specification, murder with a firearm specification and having a weapon under disability.

He was sentenced to 30 years to life.

On appeal, White argued the trial court erred in imposing consecutive sentences.

While the trial court noted at the sentencing hearing that two of the offenses were part of one or more courses of conduct, the journal entry relied upon the assumption that White’s prior criminal history demonstrated that consecutive sentences were necessary to protect the public from future crimes.

Ninth District judges Jennifer Hensal, Donna Carr and Julie Schafer agreed that the court’s findings at sentencing differed from its judgment entry.

The panel overruled White’s other assignments of error, including his accusation that the prosecutor’s remarks in closing argument deprived him of a fair trial.

The case is cited State v. White, 2016-Ohio-4829.


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