July 2 PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty again sought for Travaglia Some jurors who will be asked to put Michael Travaglia to death might never have heard of or might have forgotten about the "kill-for-thrill" rampage that left 4 people dead. But during the Christmas and New Year season 25 years ago, Travaglia and accomplice John Lesko shocked western Pennsylvania with the cold-blooded murders. Both were sentenced to death in a 1981 trial that drew intense media publicity. Both have filed rounds and rounds of appeals. And now, another jury will be asked to give Travaglia the death penalty for the fatal shooting of an Apollo police officer, 21-year-old Leonard C. Miller, on Route 66 in Oklahoma Borough. Miller had stopped the 2 for speeding. He was shot dead as he approached the pair, sitting in an Italian sports car stolen from Mt. Lebanon organist William Nicholls. A federal judge ordered a re-sentencing hearing for Travaglia because jurors learned he had pleaded guilty to a slaying in the Indiana County case. Jury selection for the new panel, expected to take two weeks, begins Tuesday before Westmoreland Judge John Blahovec. Testimony is expected to last another 2 weeks before jurors begin to deliberate. More than 2 decades ago, pretrial publicity forced 2 mistrials before a jury from Berks County was empaneled. It will be different this time, officials said. "It'll be easier," said court administrator Paul S. Kuntz. "Gosh, we'll have jurors who weren't even born yet." The killing spree began Dec. 27, 1979, at the Edison Hotel in Pittsburgh. Lesko and Travaglia were living in the building, above a strip club. Travaglia and Lesko killed unemployed security guard Peter Levato, 49, of Pittsburgh's North Side, after he allegedly propositioned them in an alley. Travaglia and Lesko forced Levato into a car at gunpoint. They then tied the victim's hands and feet and stuffed him in the trunk. They drove to Loyalhanna Dam. Levato made a break after he was taken out of the car, but the killers found him behind a tree. Levato was shot to death. The killers blamed each other. On New Year's Day, Lesko and Travaglia were hitchhiking along Route 66 after leaving Travaglia's home in nearby Washington Township. Marlene Sue Newcomer, 26, of Connellsville, who was coming home from a party in Vandergrift, picked them up. Lesko pulled a .22-caliber gun. They handcuffed Newcomer and put her in the back seat. Then they drove to Indiana County, where they robbed a clerk at an all-night store of $35. On the way back, they killed Newcomer. A day later, the killers met Nicholls at the Edison. Travaglia claimed the victim made a sexual advance. Again, the murderers drove away with a victim held at gunppoint. They went to Blue Spruce Lake, where Travaglia's family owned a summer cabin. Lesko and Travaglia beat Nicholls unconscious. They bound his legs and feet and stuffed a scarf in his mouth. They kicked a hole in the frozen lake and stood and watched as Nicholls bobbed to the surface and then sunk. Almost 9 years after a federal judge ordered a re-sentencing hearing for Travaglia in the death of Miller, prosecutors will try to convince a jury for a 2nd time that he deserves to be executed. The defense team will argue that he should serve a life sentence for the murder. Travaglia and Lesko, now both 46, were arrested Jan. 3, 1980, the day they killed Miller to divert him from their planned robbery of an Apollo convenience store. The details of the Indiana case have gone through meticulous judicial scrutiny because defense attorneys contend jurors deliberating the death penalty in the Miller case should not be prejudiced by the horrific details of Nicholls' slaying. In November 1996, U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch ordered a new sentencing hearing for Travaglia, ruling that prosecutors should not refer to his conviction in the Indiana case as the product of a guilty plea. For the new sentencing hearing, jurors will not be sequestered during testimony. 10 years ago, Westmoreland County sequestered jurors for a re-sentencing of Lesko, a former Pittsburgh resident. That jury affirmed the death sentence. Kuntz said it's likely many jurors won't be familiar with original news accounts of the trial. Not sequestering the jury, at least prior to deliberations, will save money. The 15-day trial to re-sentence Lesko cost the county about $50,000, including the lodging of jurors at a New Stanton hotel. To choose the death penalty, the jurors must find that the aggravating circumstances of the case outweigh the mitigating factors offered by the defense. The verdict must be death if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances. Lesko continues to appeal his death sentence. (source: Tribune-Review) GEORGIA: Guilty plea in nun killing means man spared death penalty A man who killed his father and then abducted 2 Catholic nuns pleaded guilty Friday, a deal that spares him the death penalty and acknowledges the church request that he not be put to death. The defendant, Adrian O. Robinson, was already serving a life sentence in Virginia, where he took 2 nuns he'd taken hostage from Christ the King Catholic Church in March of 2003. One of the nuns, 68-year-old Sister Philomena Fogarty, was decapitated. The other nun escaped a motel room in Norfolk, Va., where she was being held and led police to Robinson. Robinson, 27, was due to face 19 additional charges in Georgia, including a murder charge for allegedly shooting his father 16 times before setting off to attack the nuns. Family members said Robinson was mentally ill, and they also opposed the death penalty. Edward Robinson, the brother of Robinson's slain father, stood in court to address his nephew Friday. "I love you. I forgive you and I want you to know that," he said. Father Ronnie Madden, priest in charge at Christ the King Catholic Church, thanked the district attorney's office for accepting the plea without seeking the death penalty. "This is a day that hopefully will begin the healing process that is long overdue," Madden said. Sister Lucie Kristofik, the surviving nun, is now serving in Rhode Island and did not attend Friday's hearing. Robinson will serve his sentence in Virginia. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Death row Scot could face another year waiting for retrial Kenny Richey, the Scot on death row in America for the murder of a young girl, may have to wait a year before his retrial, it emerged last night. Richey's family, who had largely welcomed Thursday's decision to retry him as an opportunity for the former marine from Edinburgh to prove his innocence, were angry at the delay. His fiance, Karen Torley, described the news as "yet more injustice" for Richey, 41, who in January had his murder conviction and death sentence overturned by an appeal court after living in the shadow of Ohio's electric chair for 18 years. "As far as I know, prisoners have a right to a speedy trial," she said. "Three months is more than enough, there's no reason to drag it out." She said Richey, who has always protested his innocence, will be devastated when he learns that he may face another Christmas in prison. Richey's father, Jim, 67, who lives in Washington state and is undergoing cancer treatment, was appalled at suggestions that the trial may not take place until next year. "As far as I'm concerned, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals made the prosecutors' decision for them as to how long they can hold him," he said. "It said in June that they must retry him or let him free within 90 days and, as far as I'm concerned, there's no getting around that. These people may like to think they can do otherwise, but we'll see. The federal government may have something to say about that." The appeal court which overturned Richey's conviction for the murder of two-year-old Cynthia Collins, who died in a house fire in Columbus, Ohio, on 30 June, 1986, decreed the 90-day rule, but the process has been subjected to procedural delays. Richey's mother, Eileen, 60, has said she was not sure she could cope with another trial. "I don't know how much more I can take, it never ends," she said. "I can't believe that after all this time he's waited ... it's unreal." Among the reasons cited by the appeal court for its decision, was that Richey had received incompetent advice at his trial, that the evidence used to convict him was flawed and that prosecutors needed to prove he intended to kill the little girl to convict him of capital murder. Prosecutors said at the time that Richey had started the fire in an attempt to kill his former lover, who lived in the apartment below the victim. On Thursday, Gary Lammers , Putnam County's prosecutor, announced his decision to seek new charges against Richey and retry him, a decision largely welcomed by his supporters. He has said he has no new evidence in the case. However, Mr Lammers' decision to include the death penalty as an option for a grand jury panel to consider has shocked them. Richey's lawyer, Ken Parsigian, described the move as "just bloodthirsty" and said that he would fight it all the way. He is now seeking to get Richey transferred out of Ohio's death row to a county jail and will also seek bail. "They don't even have a charge against him," said Mr Parsigian, who added that no-one is held on death row without a capital murder conviction. "You don't get to hold someone on death row on 23-hour lockdown if you are presenting evidence to a grand jury. We're not going to stand by and let them do it just because he's been there before." Mr Parsigian said that Mr Lammers has a "very long road and tough hurdles to overcome in order to prosecute the death penalty eligible offence". He added: "We are confident that we are able to persuade a court that he can't." The United States double jeopardy rule, makes it impossible for someone to be tried for the same offence twice, so any attempt to retry him on the same murder charge would violate Richey's constitutional rights. Mr Parsigian is also challenging Mr Lammers over his interpretation of the 90-day period, saying that the trial must begin in that time, by 1 September. (source: The Scotsman)
