Taxpayers should not foot the bill to help a former Blairsville man craft a new appeal for his murder convictions in the execution-style slayings of his mother, sister and aunt, Westmoreland County prosecutors said in court Thursday.
District Attorney John Peck and Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar argued there was no basis for Kevin Murphy’s court-appointed lawyers to hire a new ballistics expert with public money as part of their effort to overturn the jury verdict.
Murphy, 58, is on death row after he being sentenced to death by lethal injection following his convictions for the April 2009 slayings of his mother, Doris Murphy, 69; sister Kris Murphy, 43; and aunt Edith Tietge, 81. Each was shot in the back of the head with a .22-caliber revolver at the family-owned glass repair shop in Loyalhanna. Prosecutors at trial contended the woman were killed because they disapproved of Murphy’s romantic relationship with a married woman and didn’t want her to live at the family home near Saltsburg, Indiana County.
“He brought the gun there and used it. No one else was a suspect,” Peck argued.
Prosecution experts testified during the 2013 trial that the weapon found by police on the floor of Ferguson Glass following the murders was the gun used to kill at least two of Murphy’s family members.
New defense attorneys Brian Aston and Ken Noga want to hire a private ballistics expert to review and test the gun and bullet fragments found at the murder scene.
A defense-hired expert who testified at the trial was paid for by Murphy and corroborated the prosecution’s ballistics evidence, Aston said. He argued the findings were based on flawed investigatory procedures.
The defense, in court documents filed this week, suggested Murphy’s ballistics expert never personally tested the gun or compared bullet fragments found at the crime scene to the weapon.
Murphy was represented by private lawyers during his trial. His case has since been turned over the court-appointed lawyers who are paid by county taxpayers. As a result, any additional costs incurred by the defense, such as the hiring of experts, must be approved by a judge.
Common Pleas Court Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio in August ruled the defense could spend up to $2,500 to hire a ballistics expert, but then rescinded that order when the prosecution objected.
Aston said prosecutors should have no say in how the defense prepares its case, in part, because Murphy’s potential new appeal — in which he is expected to claim he was not properly represented at trial — has yet to be filed.
Aston said a new ballistics review will enable the defense to craft the appeal.
“That is why the prosecution should not have a seat at the table. They’re trying to say what an expert will or will not say,” Aston said.
The judge will make a ruling later.
