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Fifteen-year-old faces 40- to 80-year prison term

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

By Virginia Kopas Joe, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Ian Bishop, 15, has been found guilty of murder in the third degree for the brutal bludgeoning death of his brother Adam, 18. He faces 40 to 80 years in prison.

	Ian Bishop, shown here in June 2002, was convicted of third degree murder yesterday. (V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette)

A Westmoreland County jury deliberated less than six hours yesterday to reach the verdict. Bishop is the second-youngest person ever to be tried for murder in the county.

The jury reached its verdict after hearing seven days of intense testimony and seeing more than 150 gruesome photographs of the severely beaten victim.

The defense, led by attorney Tom Ceraso of Greensburg, had argued that Ian Bishop, a Hempfield ninth-grader, acted in self-defense on April 19, 2002, the day his older brother was murdered with a claw hammer and a wooden billy club in the family's Hempfield home.

Ceraso said last night that this was "the worst case he has ever tried in his more than 40 years as an attorney. There are no winners, only losers here," he said.

"The Bishops lost a second son today," Ceraso said.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Noonan, who led the prosecution team, had asked for a first-degree murder verdict, which brings life in prison without chance of parole. But he said he respects the jury's findings and said he was glad the jury didn't buy the self-defense argument.

Noonan echoed Ceraso's sentiments: "There are no winners here; a mother lost two sons today."

Attorneys for both sides admitted that there was a confusing "inconsistency" with the jury's findings of third-degree murder and first-degree conspiracy. Each of the jury's findings brings a 20- to 40-year sentence. But murder in the third degree does bring chance of parole.

Ceraso said the family hasn't talked yet about an appeal, but there were some issues that the lawyer thinks indicate that it could merit one. One of those issues is Ian Bishop's age. He was 14 at the time of the murder.

"Only two countries -- Somalia and the United States -- would try a 14-year-old in an adult court," Ceraso told reporters after the verdict. Ceraso had worked to get the case tried in juvenile court, but Judge Debra A. Pezze, who presided throughout the case, ruled otherwise.

When the jury foreman announced the findings, Ian Bishop showed no emotion, as he had done throughout the trial. Ceraso told reporters that was because "Ian Bishop is a 15-year-old who doesn't have the criteria to judge what really happened here. We are dealing with a child."

Ian's parents, who took the stand last week in their son's defense, were on their way to buy him a hamburger when the verdict came in. They rushed back to the courtroom and bowed their heads and sobbed when the verdict was announced.

The six-man, six-woman jury went out at noon Monday and worked through lunch. At about 2:30 p.m. the jury sent a note asking the judge to define again what constitutes first-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. The jury also wanted another definition of conspiracy

The defense argued that Ian Bishop was not guilty and that Ian Bishop was attacked by Adam. The defense largely centered on the argument that the murder was instead done by another teenager in the Bishop house at the time. That teenager, Robert Laskowski of Wendover, Greensburg, now 16, will be tried as an adult at a later date.

Ian Bishop was returned to Westmoreland County Prison last night. On his way out of the courtroom his father reached for his hand, but five uniformed guards took Ian Bishop away.

No date for his sentencing has been set.

Virginia Kopas Joe can be reached at 724-837-1725 or vkjoe@post-gazette.com.