Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Stephen McIntosh is weighing whether or not former Columbus police officer Adam Coy should get a new trial.
Coy was tried and convicted in November for the 2020 shooting death of Andre Hill. Each side brought in expert witnesses during the trial. Now, the defense argues prosecutors hid an expert from them and that Coy should get a new trial, though prosecutors disagree.
McIntosh heard both sides during a hearing Monday morning. He's expected to make a ruling in the next few weeks.
Defense attorney Kaitlyn Stephens said prosecutors knew the expert in question thought Coy was justified in shooting Hill. She said that means prosecutors should have shared that expert's opinion in court documents.
"We must not allow the government, while only providing opinions that support their narrative, to bury the other opinions of those that do not support their narrative," Stephens said.
Prosecutor Paula Sawyers said the expert in question only gave a surface review of the case, not an in-depth analysis. She said the prosecution wasn't impressed by his testimony in other cases, that they were under no obligation to hire every potential expert they reached out to and that they had better options to choose from.
"No prosecutor worth their salt is going to call one expert witness and say, 'I'm hiring you.' They're going to interview you, because you want the best expert that you can find," Sawyers said.
The state used testimony from Seth Stoughton, but didn't use Jamie Borden, who testified as an expert during the trial of former Columbus police officer Andrew Mitchell.
Sawyers said the defense had the opportunity to present their own expert opinions, and did.
"You have two defense experts who testified at the trial. You have one expert from the state who testified after trial. A service review from Jamie Bordon is not going to change the credibility that came with those three experts," Sawyers said.
But Stephens said the testimony could have swayed a jury because, "We would have used this information to show inconsistencies between the two different opinions that the state of Ohio had in its possession."
Sawyers did not prosecute the case. Anthony Pierson, former deputy chief legal counsel for the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office, did.
Pierson is no longer with the prosecutor's office. He resigned from the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office in December.
Pierson handled the hiring of the state's expert witness.
