YOUNGSTOWN — Jennifer Ciccone, chief deputy of the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts office, said she received confirmation Monday the Ohio Supreme Court has received the necessary court documents related to a murder appeal that were late in arriving.

Sharon Kennedy, chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, filed an entry Friday in the appeal of a murder case involving defendant Lavontae Knight. Kennedy ordered the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Office to “transmit the record to this court within 10 days of the date of this order or show cause why (Clerk of Courts Michael Ciccone) should not be held in contempt.”

The transmission of the records in the possession of the clerk of court’s office in such cases is generally routine. It starts with a request from the Ohio Supreme Court called an “order to certify records.” That took place in the Knight case Jan 28. That document asked for the “original papers and exhibits to those papers,” transcripts and certified copies of other documents from the appeals and trial courts that handled the case.

The Jan. 28 filing gave the clerk of courts office 20 days to transmit the records, according to the document.

But when the record had not been received by Friday, the chief justice filed an entry notifying the clerk of courts office that “to date, the record has not been received.” When Clerk of Courts Michael Ciccone was asked about it Monday, he referred the question to Jennifer Ciccone, no relation.

In the Ohio Supreme Court’s online docketing system is a new entry dated Tuesday telling attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones, who represents Knight, that the “record,” meaning all of the documents needed for the appeal, were filed Tuesday with the clerk’s office for the Ohio Supreme Court.

A separate letter also is shown in the docketing system to attorney Chauncey Andros Reynolds Keller with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, which is handling the appeal for the state, notifying her of the same thing. Cuyahoga County is handling it because of a conflict of interest involving Assistant Prosecutor John Juhasz, who represented Knight in the appeal at the lower level, the 7th District Court of Appeals.

The appeal was filed by the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office in October, asking the Ohio Supreme Court to review a decision by the 7th District, which ordered a new trial for Knight, 29, in the Dec. 30, 2018, killing of Trevice Harris in Youngstown and wounding Harris’ girlfriend.

The panel ruled that Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court made “cumulative errors that deprived (Knight) of a fair trial.”

The Ohio Supreme Court agreed to review the matter Jan. 28.

Knight was sentenced to 58 years to life in prison in September 2022 after being convicted at trial of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and two counts of kidnapping.