Indiana County President Judge Thomas Bianco yesterday granted a request for continuance of the retrial of Ronald Weiss, ordering a delay of seven months. The judge ordered jury selection to begin on October 24th. It had been scheduled to begin on March 21st.
Weiss, who is now 73 years old, is charged with first degree murder in the death of 16-year-old Barbara Bruzda in October of 1978. He was found guilty of the murder in 1997 but a federal judge in 2018 struck down the conviction due to prosecutorial misconduct on the part of a state deputy attorney general and a state trooper.
Weiss was re-arrested for the killing upon his court-ordered release and Judge Bianco subsequently ruled that he could be retried because the prosecution’s misconduct and Weiss’s guilt or innocence were two separate issues. His ruling was upheld in State Superior Court.
Weiss remains in the Indiana County Jail without the possibility of bond. Attorney Taylor Malcolm Johnson filed the motion for continuance last Friday.
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