DA appeals new trial for beating case
Fayette County District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon has appealed a state Superior Court ruling that granted a Perryopolis man a new trial in the beating of his father. Vernon said she believes that the court’s majority opinion granting the new trial for Gregory Kontaxes, 46, may be in error. The majority opinion said that Kontaxes should have been allowed to enter a plea of guilty but mentally ill in the aggravated assault case lodged against him.
The opinion said Fayette County Judge John F. Wagner Jr. erred when he refused to accept the plea because he could not determine if Kontaxes was eligible for such a plea.
Vernon said her appeal to the state Supreme Court would focus on the minority opinion filed by one of the three judges who decided the case. The Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case.
“The dissenting opinion, I believe, was correct in holding that the judge has discretion to deny … any plea. The Superior Court is now delineating that there is a different standard for guilty but mentally ill, but didn’t define what that standard is,” said Vernon.
She also noted that the decision was a case of first impression for the Superior Court, meaning that there was no case law to define when the judge should or should not accept a guilty but mentally ill plea.
Kontaxes was convicted last July of beating his 78-year-old father with shotguns in the family’s Perryopolis home Jan. 7, 2001. He also was convicted of injuring his elderly mother, who tried to intervene and stop the assault.
While Vernon argued that Kontaxes was drunk and knew what he was doing when he inflicted the injuries, Kontaxes and his attorney presented evidence in an attempt to show he was legally insane at the time.
Jurors had the option of finding Kontaxes not guilty by reason of insanity, guilty but mentally ill, guilty or not guilty. The panel ultimately found Kontaxes guilty, apparently disbelieving testimony from two psychiatrists who told jurors Kontaxes probably did not know what he was doing at the time of the assault.
Kontaxes is serving 10 to 20 years at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford in Delaware County.