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7th District: Convictions upheld in decades-long murder case
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: October 22, 2015
A 7th District Court of Appeals panel recently affirmed a convicted triple murderer’s convictions and sentence in a case spanning four decades.
On Dec. 14, 1974, Benjamin and Marilyn Marsh, along with their 4-year-old daughter, Heather, were found murdered in their Canfield home. The couple died from gunshot wounds, while Heather died from head injuries. Their 1-year-old son was also home, but survived.
After nearly 40 years, Austinburg resident James Ferrara was indicted by a Mahoning County Grand Jury on three counts of aggravated murder, and one count each of aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery. (The lesser charges were later dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired).
Ferrara was found guilty by a jury on all three counts and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. Although bullets were recovered from the victims’ bodies, no arrests were made until three hits on latent fingerprints from the scene were identified using new technology from the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System database, according to case summary.
When Ferrara was interviewed by sheriff’s detectives in 2011, they learned that both Ferrara and victim Benjamin Marsh worded at General Motors at the same time. Ferrara claimed he didn’t know the victims and had never been to their home.
In his 2014 appeal, Ferrara raised six assignments of error, claiming:
1. The trial court abused its discretion when it admitted evidence and testimony regarding latent fingerprints without proper authentication.
Ferrara argued the trial court should not have admitted fingerprint evidence lifted from the Marshes’ garage man door because the state could not prove the chain of custody and photos of the prints’ location on the door were lost.
In a 3-0 decision written by 7th District Judge Gene Donofrio, the panel found that both a Mahoning County sheriff’s deputy and BCI forensic scientist supported the identification and chain of custody for the fingerprints.
2. The trial court committed plain error when it admitted hearsay testimony related to ballistics results from 1976 without proper foundation and in violation of Ferrara’s Sixth Amendment confrontation clause rights.
Ferrara said the trial court should not have allowed testimony by forensic scientist Andrew Chappell and Detective Patrick Mondora because the person who performed the ballistics tests was not called to testify and could not be cross-examined.
However, “… The BCI submission sheet was produced long before any suspect was identified and it was not created for the purpose of obtaining evidence against appellant who was not a suspect at the time,” wrote Donofrio.
3. Multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct violated his right to a fair trial. The panel found the statements in question were either not prejudicial or were accurate.
4. His convictions were based on insufficient evidence.
Ferrara claimed fingerprint and ballistics evidence failed to prove he murdered the Marsh family and that no evidence inside linked him the killings.
Donofrio noted that there was only one witness to testify who was at the murder scene since so much time had passed.
“This case depends almost completely on the fingerprint evidence,” he wrote. “The evidence was uncontroverted that appellant’s left middle, left ring, and left little fingerprints were found on the Marshes’ garage man door near the broken pane of glass. Appellant denied knowing the Marshes, denied ever having been to their house, and denied even knowing where Canfield was. Yet three of his fingerprints were found on the Marshes’ door near a broken pane of glass that was used to gain entrance into their house where they were murdered.”
5. Ferrara’s convictions for three counts of aggravated murder were against the manifest weight of the evidence.
Ferrara noted that none of the bullets recovered from the scene matched a specific kind of weapon.
“The jury’s only logical conclusion was that appellant left his fingerprints on the door when he broke into the Marsh house,” Donofrio countered.
6. Defense counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to evidence about the 1976 ballistic test results and the mischaracterization by the state of the 2010 ballistics test results. Ferrara was prejudiced to the point where he was denied a fair trial.
The panel, which included 7th District judges Cheryl L. Waite and Mary DeGenaro, also rejected that argument.
The case is cited State v. Ferrara, 2015-Ohio-3822.