TWO HOMICIDE CASES UNDER CONSIDERATION IN COUNTY COURT TODAY

Pretrial proceedings are scheduled today in Indiana County Court for two homicide defendants.

A motions hearing for Ronald Weiss is scheduled this morning (8:30 AM) before President Judge Thomas Bianco.  Weiss’s attorney last month filed a “motion for determination of frivolousness and reconsideration” for his 73-year-old client, who is set for retrial next month in the October, 1978 murder of 16-year-old Barbara Bruzda of Tunnelton.  Weiss was convicted of murder in 1997 after a state law barring spouses from testifying against each other changed and allowed his common law wife to appear as a witness for the prosecution.  But in 2018, federal judge Mark Hornack reversed the conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct by then-Deputy State Attorney General John Scott Robinette and a state trooper.  Hornack warned that a retrial could be barred because of double jeopardy, but Bianco eventually ruled that the prosecution’s misconduct and Weiss’s guilt or innocence were two separate issues.  His ruling was upheld in State Superior Court.

Jury selection for Weiss is scheduled for March 21^st.

Also in court today, 20-year-old Terrion Gates of Philadelphia is due before Judge Bianco for a pretrial conference.

Gates is one of four suspects charged in the shooting death of IUP student Jadeyn Wright in October of 2020.  His attorney last month was given an extension of time to file an omnibus pretrial motion on Gates’ behalf.  The cases of the other three defendants, 20-year-old Isaiah Moore of Philadelphia, 18-year-old Isabella Edmonds of Indiana, and 20-year-old Delmar Chatman of Johnstown, remain in process in the court system.