Attorney petitions high court for release
In the interests of justice, the state Supreme Court should free David Munchinski from jail immediately, according to a petition filed by his attorney. Washington County attorney Noah Geary asked the state’s highest court to reverse a Superior Court ruling that is keeping Munchinski, 52, in prison while the attorney general’s office appeals a ruling that overturned his dual murder convictions.
In October, Northumberland Senior Judge Barry F. Feudale ruled three former Fayette County prosecutors withheld so much evidence against Munchinski during three separate court appearances that the only remedy was to overturn his convictions. Feudale also barred prosecutors from retrying Munchinski in the Dec. 2, 1977, deaths of James P. Alford and Raymond Gierke.
Feudale was called in to hear the case because two of the former prosecutors involved in allegedly intentionally withholding evidence are now sitting Fayette County judges.
The men were shot to death in a Bear Rocks, Bullskin Township, chalet, reportedly over drugs.
Munchinski and Leon Scaglione were arrested in 1982, and both were later convicted. Scaglione has since died in prison, but Munchinski has always professed his innocence.
Late last year, Feudale ruled that he had no authority to set bond while the state appeals his decision to overturn the conviction. Geary took the issue to the Superior Court, which ruled Feudale could determine bail in the case.
In January, when Feudale ruled that Munchinski should be free on a recognizance bond, state prosecutors immediately asked for a stay, and for the Superior Court to reverse the decision. The court did so later in the month.
With a petition asking the Superior Court to reverse its order already filed, Geary took the extra step Thursday of asking the Supreme Court to evaluate the case and reverse the lower court’s order.
He cited eight reasons the Supreme Court should reverse, including a claim that the state Superior Court’s reversal of Feudale’s bond decision was “directly contradictory” to their earlier order that the judge should set bail.
Geary also wrote that because Munchinski’s case was so extraordinary, that the “interests of judge compel the reversal of the … order.”
“Although there are seven independent and adequate legal grounds which mandate reversal of the .. order of Jan. 21, in light of the extraordinary (and strongly suggested, criminal) misconduct committed in this case, it would be a mockery of justice and perverse to make the wrongfully convicted petitioner spend one more day in prison,” he wrote.
He has asked the Supreme Court to order the attorney general’s office to file a response immediately instead of waiting the customary 14 days to do so, “in light of (Munchinski’s) liberty interests.”