Court rejects appeal of Jocquez Ross' 2020 murder conviction

The 9th District Court of Appeals has rejected the appeal by Jocquez Ross, who is serving life in prison after being convicted of shooting and killing an Elyria couple in 2016. Judges Jennifer Hensal, Betty Sutton and Scot Stevenson rejected Ross' seven claims and one of two claims made by the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office, which cross-appealed a small portion of Ross' life sentence. The decision was handed down Monday. Attorneys argued their case before the three-judge panel on Feb. 23. Ross, 32, is serving life in prison with the possibility of parole after 43 years. Barring a successful appeal that lets him out early, his first parole hearing will be in 2060, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. Attorney Giovanna Bremke, who represented Ross in his appeal, said she plans to appeal his case to the Ohio Supreme Court. In his appeal, Ross argued that Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Rothgery improperly allowed hearsay testimony by Ross' former girlfriend and that Assistant Prosecutor Tony Cillo threatened the woman into cooperating with authorities. Ross further claimed Rothgery was wrong to provide the jury with trial transcripts in August 2020, months after it was first heard in court; that his trial attorneys gave ineffective legal counsel; and that Rothgery gave the jury "erroneous" instructions. All the above alleged errors added up to deprive Ross of a fair trial under the U.S. and Ohio constitutions, he argued The appeals court disagreed with Ross, and also rejected prosecutors' argument that Rothgery shouldn't have merged prison sentences on some of the firearm specifications against Ross. The appeals court agreed with prosecutors that Rothgery wrongly calculated Ross' overall prison term and ordered him resentenced. As a result, Ross is likely to face an additional three years in prison when Rothgery resentences him. That hearing has yet to be scheduled. A jury convicted Ross in August 2020 of shooting and killing Michael "LuLu" Lewis, 32, and Fannie Thomas Lewis, 22, in the front seat of their rental car on Fox Hill Lane in Elyria in January 2016. Prosecutors said it was a "hit" on the couple. Ross was convicted of 11 felonies including aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, having weapons under disability, and several firearms specifications. The Lewises had been dealing illegal drugs, police and prosecutors said, and Michael Lewis had a pending felony cocaine trafficking charge in common pleas court at the time of his death. Elyria police found both victims shot from behind. Evidence showed it was someone sitting in the back seat of their rented SUV who pulled the trigger. When it came to a motive for the killings, the rumor was that Michael Lewis had "snitched" to police on two of Ross' cousins, leading to their arrests on drug charges. Elyria police officers testified in court that the rumor was false. The trial started in Rothgery's court in March 2020, but Rothgery suspended testimony on March 17, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Testimony resumed in August 2020 after three postponements. Ross originally faced the death penalty, but the prosecutor's office removed that possibility after consulting with the victims' families. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.