As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied.

That’s exactly what is happening after a frustrated Mahoning County common pleas judge last week was forced to postpone the aggravated murder trial of Youngstown siblings Marquez D. Thomas, 26, and C’Mone Thomas, 23. The trial had been set to begin last week, but was derailed in a dispute over several documents the defense was awaiting from prosecution that never arrived.

The Thomases are accused in the December 2021 killing of Joseph Addison, 42, at a Tyrell Avenue apartment complex on the city’s West Side and injuring two men and a woman ages 34, 21 and 26, with gunfire.

Both defendants have been jailed for some time. One of them, Marquez Thomas, has been incarcerated since January 2022 while awaiting trial.

During a recent hearing, Judge John Durkin said it was “inexcusable” that a bill of particulars, a reply to a notice of intent to use evidence and a witness list had not been provided yet to the defense. (The conversation occurred only six days before the trial.)

“The defense may be aware of the state’s theory of the case and probably who will be called as a witness. But the fact that it has not been formalized by way of pleading is problematic,” Durkin said. “Candidly, sometimes it might take setting off some dynamite to get somebody’s attention,” the judge said of the failings of prosecutors.

As a result, Durkin postponed the trial to Oct. 2, and the prosecutor’s office is facing possible sanctions.

Frankly, we are equally disappointed in the actions of our prosecutor’s office — especially considering how closely it mirrors a previous incident that occurred under the leadership of former Prosecutor Paul Gains. In that unrelated 2021 case, the judge ended up removing then-Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa from a murder case because of evidence not being turned over in a timely manner to the defense. Cantalamessa no longer works for the Mahoning County prosecutor’s office.

In that case, attorney David Betras, who represented defendant Lavontae Knight, filed a motion asking for Cantalamessa to be removed from the case or for charges to be dismissed against Knight because of late-arriving evidence.

Back then, Betras provided documents and other information to show more than two years went by between the time an eyewitness failed to identify Knight from a photo lineup as being involved in the killing of Josh Donatelli, 26, and when Betras learned about the lineup 10 days before the case was due for trial.

At that time, Cantalamessa was working for Gains, who has since retired. It is noteworthy that the process in which Gina DeGenova was appointed to replace him also came under fire because of the appearance of improper meetings with Mahoning County commissioners just before DeGenova’s appointment.

Despite the appointment this year of the new county prosecutor, it appears old habits die hard in that office.

Frankly, no matter who is at the wheel, it always is imperative that officials in the prosecutor’s office are doing their absolute best to ensure justice is being carried out with complete accuracy and, yes, fairness. Believe it or not, the role of the prosecutor is not to get a conviction at any cost. Rather, it’s to ensure that legal matters are being handled fairly and by the rules, so that even those accused of committing crimes are getting a fair shot at either acquittal or conviction.

Let’s not forget this still is America. And even when a suspect is charged, arrested and jailed, he or she remains innocent until found guilty in a court of law.

We strongly encourage our Mahoning County prosecutor’s office to begin working a little harder to ensure they are not playing fast and loose with the justice system, but instead are following the law to the letter.