Innocence Institute- PA Superior Court denies appeal in 1997 East Liberty murder case

New evidence in Troy Joseph’s murder case was rejected over a mailing dispute.

By Angela Disipio
Innocence Institute of Point Park University

A former East Liberty man says new evidence would prove his innocence in the slaying of his sister’s boyfriend, but a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled that it cannot be introduced because it was filed too late.

In its decision, Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that dramatically reduces Troy Joseph’s chances of reopening the controversial case and bringing forward new evidence that he says would exonerate him.

Now, unless he wins relief from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court or the federal system, his sentence will stand, leaving unanswered questions about three circumstantial factors that led to his conviction in the murder of his sister’s boyfriend:

• Whether there is any credibility to Joseph’s denial of ever giving a confession that was used to convict him is true;
• Whether testimony from at least two eyewitnesses who Joseph claims would testify it was another man they saw flee the area after Richard Pearson was shot dead on a rainy night in East Liberty, and
• Whether a tumultuous relationship between the judge in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court who refused to reopen the case, Joseph’s former lawyer, and the Innocence Institute of Point Park University — which investigated the matter – caused sufficient bias to remove the trial judge from it.

In his latest appeal to the Superior Court, his claims of unfairness was rejected.

“[W]e conclude that the … court did not evidence bias in its evidentiary rulings and did not abuse its discretion in refusing to recuse itself,” it said in a February 2009 opinion.

The Fight That Lead To A Death (or did it)

Before 11 p.m. on May 24, 1997 Joseph visited his sister at Cambria Courts Apartments in East Liberty where he encountered Richard Pearson, who also lived in the second floor apartment.

The two men began to argue over a drug debt and as it escalated, decided to settle their differences outside. According to Joseph, they argued down two flights of stairs when a masked man wielding a gun emerged from behind the stairwell and attempted to rob them. Joseph, who was in front of Pearson says he ran from the building and heard gun shots as he fled across a parking lot toward Larimer Avenue. By the time the paramedics had arrived, Pearson had died of seven gun-shot wounds.

Based on statements from his sisters about the argument, Joseph naturally became the primary suspect in the killing. In an interrogation by the police, he never denied that he and Pearson were headed outside to settle their argument with fists. He also made it no secret that he did not like how Pearson treated his sister.

Police said Joseph confessed after five hours of questioning. For the first three hours he maintained his innocence. Then the detectives suggested that he had acted in self defense. That’s when he said they began taking notes. They handed him a statement handwritten by the investigator and Joseph signed it, without reading it, believing it was his ticket to go home.

It became his confession, the lynchpin of the case against him.

Recantation Doesn’t Stick

During pretrial proceedings Joseph recanted his confession, claiming that the cops had made it up. Nonetheless, the confession and circumstantial testimony about the contentious relationship between Pearson and him brought Joseph, then 18, a conviction and life sentence in prison.

His initial appeals were denied.

Five years later in a chance prison encounter, Joseph met Jacque Maynor, a fellow inmate at SCI Fayette. After learning about Joseph’s case, Maynor incredibly said he saw the entire event while standing in a parking lot across the street from the apartment complex on that rainy night.

In a 2004 affidavit Maynor swore to have “absolute knowledge that an innocent man is imprisoned for a crime that I’m sure he did not commit.” In the same affidavit he stated that he told detectives about what he saw the day after the murder. No police reports with such a statement have ever been produced by police or prosecutors.

At the time, Joseph was without a lawyer and submitted a handwritten petition to the Superior Court, who ordered the case back to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court Judge Donna Jo McDaniel for a hearing. At issue during the hearing was whether Joseph filed his appeal about newly discovered evidence within 60 days of learning about it as prescribed by law.

Time Is Not On Joseph’s Side

It was just before this proceeding that John Feeney, a long-time litigator and former Allegheny County Common Pleas judge who was a volunteer at the Innocence Institute of Point Park University, separated himself from the organization and reactivated his law license to represent Joseph at no charge.

At the evidentiary hearing, the new evidence took second position to whether Joseph had mailed his appeal before the court’s 60-day deadline had passed. Judge McDaniel refused to accept as evidence a carbon copy of a receipt Joseph filed with his appeal from the prison mailroom, which in previous cases, his lawyer argued, was deemed sufficient to prove the timeliness of letters mailed from prison. Judge McDaniel denied Joseph’s petition for a new trial.

In a series of subsequent petitions, hearings and rulings, Judge McDaniel lashed out against Joseph, who she labeled as a man utterly lacking credibility. She also said Joseph fabricated documents and that Joseph’s lawyer was manipulative and insubordinate in court. She accused the Innocence Institute — which investigated and wrote about Joseph’s case — of conspiring to pay for Joseph’s legal defense.

“In a blatantly selfish effort to free himself, the defendant may well have negatively affected the cases and lives of any number of truly innocent individuals, something to which this court is certain he did not give any consideration,” Judge McDaniel wrote in an opinion.

In the same opinion, Judge McDaniel wrote that Feeney indulged in “hysterical ranting of an attorney unfamiliar with criminal practice and procedure, who is now attempting to shift blame for both his poor advocacy and his client’s utter lack of credibility.”

Along with his report to the judicial conduct board, Feeney filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court arguing that Judge McDaniel’s decisions are invalid due to bias and prejudice. “Judge McDaniel attacked counsel in a way that I have never witnessed before.” The appeal was denied.

Innocence Institute Wrongfully Accused?

The judge also accused the Innocence Institute of working with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, its partner during some of the Joseph appeal, to provide funding for Mr. Joseph’s defense.

“It is the view of this court, given the defendant’s confession, and his obvious falsifications of documents, that the involvement of the Innocence Institute of Point Park University, in this case, compromises, not only its reputation and effectiveness, but the reputation and effectiveness of various innocence projects nationwide,” Judge McDaniel wrote.

In a written response to those unsubstantiated charges, Bill Moushey, director of the Innocence Institute, said it had not provided any funding for Joseph or Feeney, who divorced himself from the organization as soon as he became a lawyer in the case, and demanded corrections be placed on the court’s record.

In his letter to the judge, which was copied to Joseph James, then administrative judge of Allegheny County and the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board, Moushey said the role of the Innocence Institute is simply to research and write about allegations of wrongful convictions and misconduct in the judicial system. He wrote that no money has ever changed hands between convicts, lawyers, the Post-Gazette and the organization.

“This journalism-based investigative reporting organization does not represent anyone or anything but the search for the truth,” Moushey wrote.

Judge McDaniel did not respond.

In his appeals and complaints to remove the judge from the case, Feeney referred to Judge McDaniel’s “deep seated and concealed bias and resentment against Mr. Joseph.” He argued for the inclusion of Maynor’s testimony on the basis that all previous opinions are invalid due to Judge McDaniel’s palpable bias against Joseph and false assumptions of his credibility.

“If her mind is closed to the possibility of the Defendant’s innocence, then only by her recusal can the Defendant get a fair hearing,” Feeney wrote.

In response, Judge McDaniel stated Mr. Feeney was using the appeal system to retaliate against her prior ruling. “Throughout these proceedings, Mr. Feeney has been, at best, obstreperous, never missing a chance to argue with this Court’s ruling, misstate them or ignore them completely, then almost always continuing to accuse this Court of bias.”

McDaniel Ruling Affirmed

On July 7, 2008, she affirmed her previous ruling stating that her original ruling was “carefully considered and legally correct,” and any claims otherwise “are meritless and should be denied.”

Then on February 18, 2009 the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the lower court’s opinion to re-open the case due to the less-than-timely filing of his latest appeal.

It supported the lower court’s decision that Joseph’s “story was incredible is amply supported,” the opinion stated. “Its credible findings were based on logic and the implausible series of mishaps and events that would have had to occur in order to create a timely-filed petition.”

The Superior Court also ruled that although Judge McDaniel “expressed exasperation at counsel’s maneuverings, nothing in her statements evidenced the type of bias or prejudice needed to sustain a successful recusal motion.”

These events led Feeney to withdraw from the case.

“I felt that after three years that the judge’s bias against both Mr. Joseph and me wasn’t going to lead to anything constructive,” he said.

Unless Joseph wins relief from the Pennsylvania Supreme court or the federal system, the new evidence in his case will never be heard in court.

Joseph Fights On

Since having lost that legal battle Joseph has found two new witnesses who say they also saw someone else flee the scene of the crime after the killing.

Despite these latest breakthroughs Feeney is uncertain that Joseph’s case will ever go anywhere. “Troy Joseph has been consistently getting a raw deal from the system,” Feeney said.

In a letter to the Innocence Institute Joseph wrote that he was not only a victim of tactics of the detectives on the case, but that he “was also a victim of the justice system intended to serve society.” Awaiting a date for his fourth appeal, Joseph has not given up hope.

“My life hasn’t stopped, but no Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award, book-of-the-week or million dollar invention can fill the void of love, family, children,” he wrote.

A. Disipio is a graduate student in the School of Communication at Point Park University. She can be reached at 412-765-3164 or innocence[at]pointpark[dot]edu.