A defense effort to have attempted murder charges dismissed against a former Ohio man accused in a New Kensington shooting last year cannot be argued before a pending trial, a judge ruled Tuesday.
The lawyer for Iven Cashua Miller Jr., 38, contended the case against his client has substantially changed in the months since his arrest and a preliminary hearing was conducted last fall in which he was represented by an attorney who was later issued a one-year suspension by the state Supreme Court.
Miller is accused of firing multiple shots at two people in a New Kensington alley on June 25, 2023. Investigators said the victims identified Miller as the shooter and that his DNA was found on the weapon investigators suspect was fired during the alleged incident.
No one was injured in the shooting and no spent shell casings or indications of gunfire were found at the scene.
Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Mears ruled Tuesday that Miller cannot seek a dismissal at this stage of the prosecution because defense attorneys previously listed the case as being ready for trial. Miller received a full airing of the case during a preliminary hearing last fall, the judge said.
Assistant Public Defender James Spriestersbach argued Miller received a poor defense at that hearing and that a recent exchange of evidence from prosecutors that included additional details involving a DNA test warranted a pretrial testing of the case.
“There’s been change of landscape in the case,” Spriestersbach said.
Prosecutors successfully sought to quash the defense effort seeking a potential dismissal of the case prior to trial.
“Nothing has changed in the case, and the defense has no grounds other than to claim the preliminary hearing was not sufficient,” said Assistant District Attorney Krista Koontz.
Miller has been in custody since his arrest last May in Brackenridge. He had been on the run for about 11 months after the shooting, police said.
