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Judge’s reduced sentence for ‘violent offender’ riles prosecutors

Judge sticks with sentence after viewing wrong case notes

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By Lucas Sullivan, Staff Writer Updated 11:07 PM Wednesday, November 18, 2009

DAYTON — Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias Heck’s office is looking to appeal a prison sentence handed down by a county judge who admitted he made his initial ruling after looking at the wrong case notes.

Common pleas court Judge Gregory F. Singer sentenced Turell Justice, 23, to seven years in prison earlier this month on nine felony counts related to a violent Trotwood home invasion in March. Prosecutors requested Justice get the maximum sentence of 84 years.

Singer admitted in open court days later that he reviewed the wrong case before sentencing Justice and called a re-sentencing hearing on Nov. 6.

At that hearing Singer said he considered all factors of the case, Justice’s age and though a firearm was used, “None of the victims was harmed, physically shot at or shot and ... the court’s earlier sentence was appropriate and declines to disturb it.”

Justice earlier waived all rights to a trial by pleading no contest to four felony counts of aggravated burglary, four counts of felony kidnapping and one felony count of having weapons while under disability.

Eight of the charges each carried a firearm specification, which mandates a three-year prison sentence for each count that can be served concurrently. Justice also was on probation for a 2007 aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon conviction.

“This defendant is a dangerous, repeat and violent offender,” Heck’s spokesman, Greg Flannagan, said. “A sentence should fit the seriousness ... of the crime as well as the offender. We believe a lengthy prison sentence was warranted and more appropriate.”

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