Wednesday, August 13, 2003

By Bill Moushey

Two former lawyers for convicted murderer David Munchinski testified yesterday that evidence withheld from the former Latrobe man would have won him an acquittal and that he should be granted a new trial.

James Thomas Alford speaks with Raina Munchinski in the hallway of the Fayette County Courthouse yesterday while lawyers argued over whether Munchinski's father, David Munchinski, received a fair trial when he was convicted of the 1977 murder of Alford's son, James Peter Alford. "If your daddy's innocent, I don't want him locked up," Alford said after hearing the arguments and the evidence. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)

Munchinski received two life sentences following his conviction in 1986 for the murders of James Peter Alford, 24, and Raymond Gierke, 28.

Munchinski and Leon Scaglione, who has since died in prison, were convicted of murdering the two men in December 1977 during an early morning drug robbery at Gierke's chalet in the Laurel Mountains.

Munchinski's first trial in Fayette County Common Pleas Court ended in a hung jury. He was convicted in a second trial based largely on the testimony of career criminal Richard Bowen. Munchinski has always maintained he was innocent.

During a post-conviction hearing yesterday in Fayette County Common Pleas Court, Munchinski's attorney, Noah Geary of Washington, Pa., argued that the hidden evidence and other prosecutorial improprieties deprived his client of a fair trial.

Bowen, an alcohol and drug abuser, initially told state police that Scaglione told him about the crime when both of them were in jail. Then he said he drove the getaway car. He finally said he went into the house and watched the two sodomize and kill Alford and Gierke.

The veracity of Bowen's testimony has always been a key element in the case. Bowen recanted his story several times before going back to his original version that implicated Munchinski. Bowen hanged himself in an Oklahoma jail several years after Munchinski's conviction.

Geary showed lawyers Alan Roth of Latrobe and Charles Gentile of Uniontown, who handled Munchinski's first and second trials respectively, a dozen documents that were discovered after Munchinski's 1986 conviction.

Among them was a state police report stating that Bowen, who had a long criminal history, was in Oklahoma on the day of the killings. Another report found after the conviction contained a statement from a young woman who claimed her then boyfriend confessed to the murders. In addition, fingernail scrapings and hair samples taken from the crime scene were never made available to defense lawyers for testing.. Those samples have since disappeared and there is no record they were ever subjected to DNA testing.

When asked about the report suggesting Bowen was in Oklahoma, Gentile testified, "This report directly conflicts with the testimony Richard Bowen gave. He testified he was present when David Munchinski and Leon Scaglione committed these murders."

Roth testified that he believed the new evidence would have resulted in an an acquittal instead of a hung jury in the first trial. He also testified that a jury should have heard about the deals Fayette County prosecutors gave to Bowen in exchange for his testimony.

Under Geary's questioning, Roth testified that the jury that convicted Munchinski was never told that Bowen had violated terms of his probation for three convictions in Westmoreland County, which could have resulted in 10 years of prison time. Had the jury been informed of that, it would further discredited Bowen's testimony in the eyes of the jury, Roth testified.

Senior Judge William Franks, who handled an earlier Munchinski appeal in 1992, said that many of the documents presented to him yesterday should have been turned over to Munchinski's lawyers.

Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Harter, who took over the case late last year when the Fayette County district attorney removed her office from it, argued that the evidence that had not been turned over either had no direct bearing on the case or would not have changed the jury verdict. She also blamed the former defense lawyers for not diligently pursuing every clue.

The hearing continues today before Senior Judge Barry Feudale of Northumberland County, who was appointed to the case last year when all Fayette County judges recused themselves.

Bill Moushey is executive director of the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania at Point Park College. He can be reached at bmoushey@ppc.edu or at 412-392-3416.

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