Saying a federal judge already has enough evidence to vacate the death sentence of a Johnstown man, his lawyers have withdrawn a request to return the case to state court to determine if a key witness lied.

Attorneys for Ernest Simmons, who is appealing his 1993 sentence for the murder of 83-year-old Anna Knaze of Johnstown, asked U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin of Erie to rule on evidence already before him, because it would take too long in Cambria County to determine the truthfulness of witness Margaret Cobaugh.

Cobaugh told reporters from the Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania, a joint venture of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Point Park University, that she lied when she identified Simmons as the man who raped her and threatened that she would "get the same thing" as Knaze if she told anyone about the rape.

When Simmons' lawyers tried to use the newspaper story which contained Cobaugh's statement as part of the court record, McLaughlin ruled Cobaugh's veracity would have to be litigated in state court.

The judge already has heard that prosecutors withheld important evidence from the trial jury. It included secretly made tapes in which Simmons repeatedly vowed his innocence during conversations with his girlfriend, hair samples from Knaze's body that did not match Simmons and secret deals offered to witnesses against him.