Judge: Proper notice was not given in bond hearing of man later charged in fatal shooting

Allegheny County’s president judge ruled Thursday the public defender’s office did not provide “proper notice” that it was going to Orphans’ Court to seek the release from jail of a man with intellectual disabilities who was later charged with killing a woman in Pittsburgh.

The decision by the Allegheny County Public Defender’s office to sidestep the criminal division judge who previously rejected Isreal Moseby’s release from jail four times and instead take the matter up with a judge in a different division was highly unusual and controversial. It is also one that Common Pleas President Judge Susan Evashavik DiLucente said would not be repeated.

“I don’t think, going forward, a bond motion will ever be held in this court again,” the judge said.

Moseby had been arrested in connection with the 2023 stabbing of a woman and was being held in the Allegheny County Jail.

The public defender’s office, which says Moseby is not competent to stand trial, wanted to move Moseby out of the lockup. But Judge Edward J. Borkowski, a veteran criminal division judge and former homicide prosecutor, repeatedly denied the request, believing Moseby to be dangerous.

Moseby’s lawyers decided to take the matter up with Orphans’ Court Judge Michael McCarthy. After a December hearing — at which the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office was not present, as required by law — McCarthy granted the bond modification, allowing for Moseby to be released to an unlocked community facility.

In May, Moseby walked away from Exceptional Home Care in Penn Hills. On June 4, Pittsburgh police said he shot and killed Samantha Howells in Crafton Heights.

A TribLive investigation detailed how the public defender’s office obtained Moseby’s released.

During the brief hearing, Evashavik DiLucente also ruled Trib Total Media, which petitioned to intervene in the case, would not receive notices about, or have access to, future hearings in Orphans’ Court related to the Moseby.

She affirmed that the media are not privy to hearings in Orphans’ Court about civil commitments under mental health laws.

Attorney Joseph Lawrence, who represented Trib Total Media, called the judge’s ruling Thursday about notice to the DA’s office in the Moseby case “a big deal.”

Attorneys from the Allegheny County Law Department said the DA’s office waived the rules about notice, Lawrence said.

“I don’t think the DA’s office can waive the right to a public hearing,” Lawrence told. “We just want to know what the outcomes are.”