Allegheny County’s top judge has clamped down on a controversial legal maneuver that freed a violent crime defendant from jail, enabling him, authorities say, to walk away from an unsecured facility and kill a woman several months later.

A judge in the court’s criminal division repeatedly denied bail for Isreal Moseby, who was in jail after being charged with stabbing someone. But a defense lawyer successfully won Moseby’s release by taking the matter up with a judge in a different division — one that deals with civil matters.

Police said Moseby went on to kill Samantha Howells, 52, of the North Side in Pittsburgh’s Crafton Heights neighborhood.

On Friday, President Judge Susan Evashavik DiLucente issued a memo with a simple message to all 43 judges in the court’s four divisions: Stay in your lane.

“Dear Judges, I write to remind you all that you only have authority to adjudicate cases and enter orders in the specific divisions to which you have been assigned,” Evashavik DiLucente wrote. “There are exceptions to this general rule, but those exceptions are authorized by administrative orders.”

While the vague two-line email does not specifically mention the defendant or the incident, TribLive confirmed it was sent in direct response to the Moseby case.

The legal maneuvering by the Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office that freed Moseby drew the ire of prosecutors and raised questions about whether defense lawyers were judge shopping.

A TribLive investigation of Moseby’s release revealed flaws in the handling of his bail request and the hearing that followed.

Errors included the failure of Judge Michael McCarthy, who freed Moseby, to ensure the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office attended the proceeding and to ensure the alleged victim of the stabbing was notified and given the chance to object to his release.

Those failures violated state rules of criminal procedure.

McCarthy, who sits in the Orphans’ Court division, also was prohibited under court rules in Allegheny County from presiding over a criminal court matter.

A legal expert says McCarthy is unlikely to face discipline over the case.

“I don’t think there’s any grounds for a formal sanction,” said Bruce Antkowiak, who teaches criminal law at Saint Vincent College. “The public notoriety is probably going to have to be what there is.”

Unsecured facility

Moseby, 19, was charged with aggravated assault in 2023 and held at the Allegheny County Jail after, police said, he stabbed a woman twice in the throat. However, several experts concluded Moseby was not competent to stand trial because of intellectual disability.

Judge Edward J. Borkowski, who sits in the criminal division, denied four requests from Moseby’s attorneys to release him on bail, finding the defendant was a threat to the community.

Dissatisfied with Borkowski’s rulings, Moseby’s attorneys looked to provisions in Pennsylvania’s Mental Health and Intellectual Disability Act for help. They filed a new petition under that law with McCarthy in Orphans’ Court.

Moseby’s assistant public defender, however, then filed an additional motion to modify bail and asked McCarthy to hear that, as well — despite Borkwoski’s previous decisions denying the similar requests.

McCarthy moved forward with the hearing without prosecutors being present or the alleged victim of the stabbing being alerted.

A month later, McCarthy granted the motion to release Moseby to Exceptional Home Care in Penn Hills, an unsecured facility. Moseby left the jail in late February.

But on May 5, according to court records, Moseby, who had been on electronic home monitoring, walked away from the facility.

Although McCarthy issued a warrant to take Moseby into custody, the Allegheny County sheriff has said no one told his office to prioritize finding Moseby.

On June 4, police said, Moseby killed Howells when she confronted him and two other people on a piece of property she and her husband owned.

Police said Moseby grabbed her, walked her to the front of her vehicle and shot her.

Question of consequences

Caitlin Zack, Howells’ daughter, said she has never heard from anyone in the court system about what happened to her mother.

“It’s disappointing,” she said. “We lost our mother for absolutely nothing.”

If court procedures would have been properly followed, Zack continued, Moseby would not have been out on the streets.

She questioned why there aren’t consequences for the judge and attorneys involved.

Allegheny County court administration refused to answer questions on the matter Friday, saying it would have no comment.

But Antkowiak said sometimes there are no consequences.

“Before you can go off and level sanctions against somebody, there has to be a standard that’s been violated.”

For McCarthy, the rules violated — not having a prosecutor present for the bail hearing and not notifying the victim — don’t carry a penalty.

“The same legislature that wrote those rules could have written a sanction, and they didn’t,” Antkowiak said.

Judges are elected to their positions and therefore, he continued, there can be a political consequence.

In McCarthy’s case, he turned 75 this year and has reached mandatory retirement age.

He is expected to retire at the end of the year.

“The political sanction is now moot,” Antkowiak said. “You can have a godawful consequence like this — not intended but brought about inadvertently by his conduct.”

Other than that, complaints about judges can be submitted to Pennsylvania’s Judicial Conduct Board, and complaints about lawyers can be made to the Court of Judicial Discipline.

Zealous advocate

As for the public defender, Antkowiak said she was doing her job.

Acting Chief Public Defender Andy Howard said the same.

“Public defenders are required to advocate zealously and relentlessly for our clients, and that duty can be especially difficult and important for children with severe intellectual disabilities that are not mandated care,” Howard said.

“I have not seen any evidence to suggest that the attorney in this case did anything other than discharge those duties ethically and in compliance with the rules.”

Since Howells’ death, Howard said he has not issued any memo or policy change for his staff because it is unlikely such an issue will come up again.

“If there’s a change in court procedures, I adapt to that,” he said. “We haven’t heard anything from Judge Evashavik or court administration since the hearing.”

On July 10, Evashavik DiLucente said at a hearing in Orphans’ Court related to the Moseby case: “I don’t think, going forward, a bond motion will ever be held in this court again.”

It appears the email she sent Friday memorialized that.

But, to Howells’ daughter, that’s not enough.

“They just carelessly didn’t do their job,” Zack said. “Now my life will never be the same.”

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