Suspected cop killer Rahmael Holt set to go on trial in November

The Harrison man accused of shooting and killing New Kensington police Officer Brian Shaw in November 2017 is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 4, a Westmoreland County judge said Thursday.

President Judge Rita Hathaway set aside the entire week of Nov. 4 for the murder trial of Rahmael Sal Holt and also set aside Nov. 12, the day after Veterans Day, if needed.

Jurors will be selected Oct. 28 and 29, with an extra day set aside on Oct. 31, Hathaway said. Defense attorney Tim Dawson has asked to have the jury selected from another county because of pretrial publicity surrounding the case.

Holt, who turns 31 on Friday, is being held in Westmoreland County Prison on charges of first-degree murder and murder of a police officer.

He did not look at Shaw’s family as he left the courtroom after the brief proceedings Thursday.

Holt is accused of shooting Shaw after he ran from a Nov. 17 traffic stop. An intense manhunt ensued and Holt was arrested by authorities Nov. 21 in Pittsburgh.

The judge agreed to Dawson’s request to delay the start of the trial from August to November to allow for a report from a specialist on mitigating circumstances in the case.

The defense already had been granted a delay in the trial from April on the grounds that they were unable to hire a private investigator. Dawson said Thursday that he and co-defense attorney James Robinson still have been unable to get a private attorney to assist in an investigation into the case.

Dawson was granted his request for the court to pay for a handwriting expert to study a letter that Holt purportedly wrote to the driver of the vehicle that Shaw stopped on the night of the fatal shooting.

The defense attorneys Wednesday filed a motion in Westmoreland County Court to prevent District Attorney John Peck from seeking the death penalty against Holt until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules whether the state’s death penalty is unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment. The state Supreme Court heard arguments in December in two death penalty cases from Philadelphia.

The defense argued in its motion that the court should rule sometime this fall or winter.

“It makes sense to await the outcome of those impactful and precendential cases to delay this capital proceeding,” the defense attorneys wrote. At the very least, the capital phase of the case should be delayed pending the outcome of the Supreme Court decisions, the motion read.

Peck said that comparing Holt’s case with the two pending cases from Philadelphia is like “comparing apples to oranges” because the death penalty already was handed down in those two trials and Holt has yet to come to trial.