Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Judge Anthony M. Mariani no longer plans on seating a death-penalty jury for cases brought to trial. Capital punishment technically is something that could happen in Pennsylvania. It’s a penalty that is on the books. It is used only for first-degree murder but requires
An Allegheny County judge on Wednesday said he will not allow the district attorney’s office to seat a death-penalty qualified jury because of the ongoing moratorium on capital punishment in Pennsylvania. Judge Anthony M. Mariani wrote in a 10-page opinion that compelling prospective jurors to sit through the “grueling and
Two prosecutors in the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office said earlier this month that they couldn’t withdraw criminal charges in one case or make a plea deal in another because of politics. In both instances, the assistant district attorneys cited the upcoming primary election between their boss, six-term incumbent District
In November 2019, Laron Smith was forbidden by airline officials from taking his connecting flight from Chicago to Arizona because of his erratic behavior. Airline employees called Smith’s father in Arizona, as well as his mother in Pittsburgh, and said he’d been acting strangely. Smith, now 26, believed then that
A jury deliberated for four days before finding a Carrick man not guilty of all counts on Tuesday in the 2021 shooting death of another at Club Erotica in McKees Rocks. Khalil Walls, 27, left the Allegheny County Courthouse a free man. “I truly believe it is the proper verdict,”