Intellectual disability decision to be challenged

Ohio appeals court sent claim back to local court

WARREN -- A month after the Ohio Eleventh District Court of Appeals sent death row inmate Andre "Kokomo" Williams' intellectual disability claim back to the local court, the Trumbull County Prosecutor Office is preparing to challenge the appellate court's ruling at the Ohio Supreme Court.

The appeal assigned three errors the state wants to address regarding the appeal court's decision:

l Challenge the court's jurisdiction to hear the case.

l In violation of the constitutionality of victim's rights as given by Marsy's Law.

l The appellate court abused discretion.

The appeal asks the Supreme Court to make a ruling on those three assignments of error.

A 51-page decision written by District Judge Mary Jane Trapp states that after careful review of the record and pertinent law, the court found, "the trial court abused its discretion in determining Mr. Williams did not prove intellectual function deficits, significant adaptive deficits and the onset of deficits while he was a minor."

"In many instances, the trial court's findings under each prong lack evidentiary support and / or proper legal reasoning. In other instances, the trial court excluded and / or failed to address evidence that supports a finding Mr. Williams is intellectually disabled," Trapp wrote.

FACTS OF THE CASE

Williams was sentenced to death in 1989 for a home invasion that left George Melnick, 65, of Warren, dead, and for the beating, blinding and attempted rape of Melnick's wife, Katherine.

On Feb. 17, 1989, Williams and a co-defendant broke into the elderly couple's home on Wick Street SE in Warren. Since the 1990s, Williams has lost a series of appeals to get him off death row.

Co-defendant Christopher W. Daniel was sentenced to 37 to 100 years in prison after he was found guilty in 1989 of involuntary manslaughter, attempted murder, aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery in connection to the attack on the Melnicks.

The two men broke into the couple's home, beating both and robbing them of about $2,000, credit cards and a VCR.

Katherine Melnick was 64 when she was hit with a brick while washing dishes and then was beaten with an ax handle by Daniel, according to Watkins. She was blinded in the attack and spent the rest of her life in a nursing home. She died in 2012.

In July, Daniel was denied parole by the Ohio Parole Authority. His next chance at a parole hearing will be in March 2026.