A federal appeals court this week reinstated the first-degree murder conviction of a former Penn Township man who has been serving a life prison sentence in connection with the fatal shooting of a romantic rival in 2006.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling in June 2020 that overturned the murder conviction of Jason Paul Maple and reinstated the guilty verdict issued by a Westmoreland County jury after a 2008 trial.

Prosecutors said Maple, now 40, led a group of four men and his girlfriend, Jennifer Vinsek, to Manor to find and rob William Teck, a man he believed threatened to rape his girlfriend and ransacked her apartment.

Teck and a friend, Patrick Altman, were lured out of a diner in Manor after they were invited to a party and walked to nearby railroad tracks to head back to Greensburg. Witnesses said Maple, armed with a shotgun, followed them to the tracks and fired the gun, killing Teck and wounding Altman.

Jennifer Vinsek was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for her role in the killing. Prosecutors said she provoked Maple to kill Teck by claiming he had threatened to rape her.

The three other men involved in the killing pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and testified against Maple and Vinsek.

A federal judge last year ruled that Maple’s verdict was tainted when jurors at his trial were allowed to hear a confession he gave to police before he was advised of his right to remain silent. Because jurors were allowed to hear the confession, Maple believed he had to testify at trial and in doing so created a fatal error in his case, the court ruled last year.

District Attorney John Peck appealed that ruling, arguing the error was harmless and Maple was not forced to testify at his trial.

The federal appeals court this week agreed with prosecutors.

“The case against Maple was very strong. Even if the trial court should have suppressed his confession before Miranda warnings, any error was harmless. Maple doubtless would have been convicted of first-degree murder of Teck and trying to murder Altman,” the judges wrote in a six-page opinion released this week.

Vinsek, 40, is awaiting a hearing before Common Pleas Judge Tim Krieger in an ongoing appeal of her conviction.

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