This story was written by Nathan Crabbe of the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania under the supervision of Post-Gazette Staff Writer Bill Moushey.

A federal judge in Erie will decide whether to consider new evidence that a key witness lied in a Pennsylvania death-row case or return the case to Cambria County for an evidentiary hearing.

In either event, U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin's ruling will delay the ultimate decision on whether Ernest Simmons, who has twice been scheduled for lethal injection, deserves a new trial because of allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Simmons, 46, was sentenced to death in 1993 in the brutal slaying of 80-year-old Anna Knaze in Johnstown.

McLaughlin already was considering an appeal on whether the longtime criminal deserved a new trial because of withheld evidence and other misconduct when new information about a key witness was revealed in a Jan. 25 story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Knaze's friend, Margaret Cobaugh, had provided the crucial evidence tying Simmons to the murder.

Cobaugh testified in 1993 she was raped by Simmons just hours after Knaze's killing and that he told her to keep quiet or "she would get the same thing Anna Knaze got."

But Cobaugh told reporters from the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania in recent months that she "could not positively identify anyone" as her attacker and identified Simmons only after an investigating officer told her that he knew Simmons had killed Knaze, but "didn't have a witness."

McLaughlin will rule in the coming weeks whether his court has jurisdiction over the new information, or whether the evidence should be presented to the trial judge in Cambria County.

Simmons' attorney, Matthew Lawry of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, asked the court on Friday to include Cobaugh's statements in the appeal as another example of misconduct, to be added to a series of questionable actions during Simmons' trial.

David Kaltenbaugh, Cambria County's chief deputy district attorney, disputed the accuracy of Cobaugh's latest statements. A story last week in the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat said Cobaugh now denies she recanted her story to Innocence Institute reporters.

If McLaughlin decides a state court must first hear the evidence, the federal appeal will be put on hold.

Before Cobaugh's new statements were revealed, the Defender Association had argued Simmons deserves a new trial because police and prosecutors withheld key evidence, including a deal they gave Cobaugh to escape prison time in exchange for her testimony, and her failure to identify Simmons from police photos.

On Friday, Kaltenbaugh admitted prosecutors also improperly withheld tests of hair found on Cobaugh that didn't match Simmons, as well as secret tape recordings made by Simmons' girlfriend in which he repeatedly declared his innocence.

Both pieces of evidence should have been turned over to the defense, Kaltenbaugh acknowledged.

But he contended a jury still would have convicted Simmons if it had been given the withheld information.

Lawry said the withheld evidence and new statements by Cobaugh support their argument that Simmons was wrongfully convicted.

"We believe that he is, in fact, innocent," Lawry said.