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Terrance J. Feaster, 19, will be sentenced today. Shooting victim's mother says justice is served
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Wednesday, Jul 09, 2008
A 19-year-old Akron man is facing at least 18 years in prison after being convicted Tuesday of murder and felonious assault in a Summit County jury trial.
But after eight hours of deliberation over two days, the panel found the defendant, Terrance J. Feaster of Stanton Avenue, not guilty of the most serious charge of aggravated murder.
Feaster also was found not guilty of attempted murder and aggravated burglary.
He was to be sentenced at 9 a.m. today by Common Pleas Judge Brenda Burnham Unruh.
The victim, Dustin M. Cline, 18, was shot Dec. 16 in a home-invasion slaying at a residence he was renting in the 200 block of Cuyahoga Street.
Witnesses at Feaster's trial said at least two people broke in, but Feaster was the only one indicted in the crime.
Prosecutors said police have not identified a second suspect.
After the verdict, Jolyn Cline, the victim's mother, said she was happy with the jury's split decision because she felt justice had been served.
''What are we teaching people if we just let them go and get away with stuff? You've got to be punished for your misbehaving, because if it would have been [my son], I wouldn't have been here for him,'' she said.
The minimum sentences for the convictions and accompanying gun specifications, according to Ohio law, are 15 years to life for murder, plus a mandatory three-year term for the gun charge.
Feaster also faces an eight-year maximum term for the felonious assault conviction, plus three years for a gun charge. But Unruh has the authority to make those sentences run simultaneously to the first.
Jolyn Cline said the most powerful evidence in the case was the weapon her son had. She said he answered the door with a .22-caliber rifle to defend three others who were inside the home with him and fired back at the intruders after the break-in.
That rifle, she said, was found in Feaster's getaway car, which was abandoned on state Route 8 with the rifle and another gun inside.
Prosecutors presented evidence that a T-shirt — found under the rifle by police — contained traces of DNA from both Feaster and Dustin Cline.
The victim was shot four times in the torso, prosecutors said.
Feaster was shot several times in the groin area and was taken in the getaway car to Akron City Hospital minutes after the shooting. He was arrested six days later — as soon as he recovered.
A girl inside the home also was shot, but she, too, recovered. Her injuries led to Feaster's conviction for felonious assault.
Jolyn Cline said it could have been much worse.
''If it wasn't for my son purchasing that rifle two or three days before he moved in there, they all would have been dead. They thought my son was going to be this little punk and give up, but he didn't go out that way,'' Cline said. ''He went out a hero.''
Defense lawyers Brian M. Pierce and Walter T. Madison declined to comment on the case, saying it would be inappropriate before sentencing.
But in Pierce's closing argument, he showed the jury an illustration titled ''Unanswered questions = Reasonable doubt.''
On that list was a notation for three items of physical evidence collected by police and analyzed by a state crime lab — which did not come back as a match for Feaster.
The list said there were no fingerprints, no blood or DNA from Feaster at the victim's home, and no blood or DNA from Feaster on any of three weapons recovered.
Feaster is not a blood relative of 18-year-old Tyree Feaster, who was sentenced last year to 13 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, contempt of court and other offenses in the January 2007 slaying of Shawrica Lester, 18, outside the Cage teen nightclub on East Market Street.
Pierce said Terrance Feaster was adopted by distant family members of Tyree Feaster.
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.
A 19-year-old Akron man is facing at least 18 years in prison after being convicted Tuesday of murder and felonious assault in a Summit County jury trial.
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