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Attorneys: Combined Selenski-Weakley trial risky
By DAVID WEISS
Posted on Wed, Mar. 14, 2007 here

WILKES-BARRE – It’s too risky, defense attorneys said, to have one trial for homicide suspects Hugo Selenski and Paul Weakley.

If there’s a mistake when prosecutors present Weakley’s redacted statements to jurors and they figure out Weakley is implicating Selenski in killing two people, it could end up in a mistrial or having any convictions thrown out on appeal, the attorneys said.

That, Selenski attorney John Pike said, would force everyone to endure more trials to remedy the error.

And that, Weakley attorney Joseph Nocito said, can be avoided if the men are tried separately.

“Why should we run through a minefield when we have … other avenues?” Nocito said before Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Chester Muroski.

District Attorney David Lupas said his prosecution team will follow the law to ensure there are no errors.

The law, Lupas and First Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll said, calls for them to try both men at once because the duo is charged with conspiracy and to use redacted forms of Weakley’s statements.

The parties will have to wait to find out whether there will be one trial or two.

Muroski initially called Tuesday’s hearing to resolve the issue but, toward the end of the hearing, the judge said there are other sensitive issues that could affect the case.

Those deal with whether prosecutors can use, at the homicide trial, evidence of an alleged robbery committed by Selenski and Weakley in Monroe County and whether they can use the preliminary hearing testimony of a witness who has since died.

The judge asked if the attorneys would have any problem with him deciding those issues first. None objected.

Now Muroski will issue an order outlining his plan.

The issues arise out of pre-trial motions filed by prosecutors and the attorneys for Selenski and Weakley, who are facing the death penalty in the slayings of Michael Kerkowski and Tammy Fassett.

Prosecutors want to try the men together at one trial. Defense attorneys want the men tried separately.

The issue revolves around the prosecution’s intent to use Weakley’s statements at trial.

State law allows prosecutors to use Weakley’s statements, in full, against Weakley, but not Selenski because Selenski’s attorneys would be unable to cross-examine Weakley, unless he testifies.

That means prosecutors, at a joint trial for the men, would have to switch any reference to Selenski in the statements with a phrase such as “another individual” when presented to a jury. The judge would also direct the jury to use the statements only as evidence against Weakley.

But Nocito said he was concerned that a redaction of Weakley’s statements could prejudice him because it’s possible the redactions would make his client appear more involved in the homicides than his full statements would.

And the redactions, he and Pike said, would also not fool the jury to believe “another individual” was someone other than Selenski while the attorneys would not be able to cross-examine Weakley.

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David Weiss, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7397.

TNT DISCLAIMER: The following article is property of the cited newspaper and/or author. I did not write it nor do not make any claims to have written it. Read at your own risk!

Judge postpones joint trial ruling
By JAMES CONMY
03/14/2007 here

WILKES-BARRE — A Luzerne County judge decided Tuesday to postpone a ruling on whether accused murderers Hugo Selenski and Paul Weakley should have a joint trial.

Judge Chester Muroski first wants to resolve other pre-trial issues in the case and attorneys for both defendants and the Luzerne County district attorney’s office agreed. Selenski and Weakley are accused of the 2002 strangulation deaths of Tammy Fassett and Michael J. Kerkowski.

Muroski reached the decision after hearing arguments from the prosecution and defense about how the trial could be affected by statements Weakley made to police before his arrest. Weakley told prosecutors he helped Selenski bury Fassett’s and Kerkowski’s bodies at 479 Mount Olivet Road in Kingston Township.

The statements will be the issues that ultimately determine whether Selenski’s and Weakley’s trials are separated. No time was set for a decision.

Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas insists the prosecution has every right to use Weakley’s statements against him at trial. The statements will not have a negative impact on Selenski as long as any reference to him is redacted from the statements and replaced with “other person” or another reference, Lupas said.

“The presumption in Pennsylvania (law) is the jury is going to follow the instructions of the court,” Lupas said. If Weakley’s statements were admissible in a joint trial, Muroski would tell the jury not to infer the “other person” was Selenski.

Selenski’s attorney John Pike disagreed with Lupas’ argument, saying Selenski could not cross examine “a piece of paper” read by a police officer. Despite a judge’s instructions, human nature would result in the jury assuming the other person is Selenski, Pike said.

“We have an assertion out there that the jury has to take it or leave it,” Pike said.

Weakley’s attorney Joseph Nocito believes the reference to “other person” would connect Weakley to two co-defendants instead of one, further complicating his client’s defense. Weakley’s attorneys will claim he was a “minor participant” in the crime but did not commit the homicides. One “honest mistake” made by someone reading a transcript that substitutes Selenski or Hugo with “other person” could result in mistrial, he said.

The next pre-trial hearing in the case is tentatively scheduled for April 10.

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