An Allegheny County judge said that he will decide by Monday whether media coverage of mass shooting suspect Richard Baumhammers will force jurors in his trial to be chosen from outside the county.
Baumhammers, 35, of Mount Lebanon, is accused of killing five people and paralyzing another on April 28, 2000, in a series of shootings that spanned Allegheny and Beaver counties. His trial is scheduled to begin April 9.
Judge Jeffrey Manning has asked a private investigator to study local media coverage of the case and has twice conducted mock jury selections to determine if unbiased jurors can be found locally. During a pretrial hearing Wednesday at the county courthouse, Manning heard both prosecution and defense arguments about the merits of moving the case or choosing outside jurors.
On Thursday, private investigator James M. Smith told Manning that 1,136 stories about the case had been reported on Pittsburgh television and radio stations and in local newspapers.
If Manning decides that an out-of-county jury is needed, the state
Supreme Court will determine what county's citizens will be used.
All 110 potential jurors at a mock jury selection Thursday said that they knew something about the case. Forty of them said that they could be impartial.
Deputy District Attorney Edward Borkowski is pursuing the death
penalty against Baumhammers, an immigration attorney with a
suspended license, claiming that he was motivated by religious and
racial animosity. Baumhammers is accused of killing a Jewish woman,
a black man and natives of China, Vietnam and India. The wounded
man was also from India.
Borkowski said that all sides are concerned about the effects of
pretrial publicity on the jury. But William Difenderfer,
Baumhammers' defense attorney, said that selling an
insanity defense would be easier if some of
the jurors knew something about the case.
"There's not one thing that's been reported that's not going
into evidence," Difenderfer said.
On March 19, WTAE-TV investigative reporter Jim
Parsons shed light on reports that investigators are
attempting to determine if Baumhammers might have
been gathering information on other alleged victims in
the days before the shootings.
Watch Jim Parsons' Report
Courthouse employees told
investigators that
Baumhammers was searching through cases by name at
a public computer terminal.
Then, according to workers, he spent several minutes
looking through one case file. Investigators for both
sides are trying to determine if the alleged killer was
looking for information on one or more of his victims.
Click the video box at right to watch that report.
Previous Stories:
Copyright 2007 by ThePittsburghChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
VIDEO
