A judge decided Monday to let lawyers try to
pick a jury from Allegheny County to hear the murder charges
against Richard Baumhammers.
Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning said that he believes that it may be impossible to find an impartial jury in Allegheny County, but he is willing to
let lawyers for both sides try to do so beginning April 11.
Manning had considered pulling jurors from another county to
hear the case.
Both prosecutors and Difenderfer had objected to the idea of the
judge ordering jurors called from somewhere else.
Manning said that he believes that he has the right to order that jurors
be called from elsewhere, but decided to give lawyers a chance to
find a jury in Allegheny County. He said that if it proves too hard
to get a jury in Allegheny County, he reserves the right to call
one from elsewhere.
The jury will have to decide whether Baumhammers, 35, has a rare
mental disorder and was delusional when he allegedly killed five
people and seriously wounded a sixth on April 28, 2000, as his attorney
contends.
Baumhammers' attorney, William H. Difenderfer, said that his client's
disability stopped his from distinguishing right from wrong.
"He's hearing voices and has all kinds of paranoid delusions,"
Difenderfer said. "He has had a long history of serious mental
illness."
Baumhammers faces 25 charges, including five counts of criminal
homicide.
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.
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.
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published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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