Jan 21, 2005 By Jennifer Harr 4 min read

David J. Munchinski’s attorney filed court documents Thursday, asking that state prosecutors be barred from filing any more motions to oppose a judge’s decision to release his client on bond and to let the order stand. Attorney Noah Geary indicated in paperwork filed with the state Superior Court that if the commonwealth files anything else related to Munchinski’s release, he will seek sanctions.

On Tuesday, the attorney general’s office appealed the order to release Munchinski on bond. As part of that appeal, the Superior Court issued a stay that stopped Munchinski from walking out of the State Correctional Institution at Fayette in Luzerne Township.

A visiting judge, Northumberland County Senior Judge Barry F. Feudale, vacated Munchinski’s two first-degree-murder convictions and barred prosecutors from retrying him in the shooting deaths of James P. Alford and Raymond Gierke. The men were shot to death at a Bear Rocks, Bullskin Township, chalet on Dec. 2, 1977.

The judge ruled in October that Fayette County prosecutors withheld key evidence during Munchinski’s 1983 and 1986 trials, and during a 1992 post-conviction appeal.

Earlier this week, Feudale ruled Munchinski could be released from jail while the state attorney general’s office appeals the decision to vacate the convictions.

But just before Geary left for the prison to get Munchinski out on Tuesday, the Superior Court granted the attorney general’s request to keep Munchinski behind bars while the office appeals Feudale’s decision to release him.

In an eight-page response Thursday, Geary called the attorney general’s office’s filing for a stay and review of Feudale’s bond “redundant, frivolous, filed in bad faith, and for the misguided purpose/effect of harassing an individual who has clearly served 20 years wrongfully, the latter which is an embarrassment to the legal system and the profession.

“It is requested that the attorney general’s office be admonished for filing such a redundant pleading and be directed to file nothing further with this court regarding the issue of (Munchinski’s) release,” Geary wrote.

Attorney general’s spokesman Nils Frederiksen said the office is fighting for what it believes is right in the case, and will continue to do so.

“He’s entitled to ask for whatever he wants to ask for, and we will continue to do what we believe is correct and what is our responsibility to do,” Frederiksen said. “We continue to believe firmly that our course of actions are the appropriate ones to protect the citizens of the commonwealth, which is our sworn duty.”

In his response to the motion for review of the bond, Geary argued that the issue was already decided when the Superior Court ruled that Feudale had the authority to grant bond.

“There is no legal justification to revisit the issue,” he wrote.

Frederiksen said prosecutors believe that since Munchinski was convicted of first-degree murder and that conviction carries a life sentence, he cannot be granted bail, under the state constitution.

“We continue to have faith in our position in this matter, and we continue to disagree strongly with the decisions that have been made by (Feudale),” Frederiksen said. “We will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the release of a convicted murderer.”

However, Geary’s filing indicates that he believes the constitution deals with people who are charged with homicide and a first-degree-murder verdict is likely.

“Here, (Munchinski’s) convictions were just vacated and re-trial barred; moreover, proof of guilt is not evident, nor is the presumption of guilt great. To the contrary, proof of innocence is evident, and (Munchinski) is further presumed innocent,” Geary wrote.

He also noted that Munchinski, free until he was convicted in 1986, always showed up for court appearances in the case.

The stay, wrote Geary, would serve only “to further punish a man who has been incarcerated for 20 years, wrongfully.

“What occurred in this case is a mockery and a perversion of justice, and it certainly would be perverse to grant the request for a stay and inflict further incarceration on Munchinski.”

Geary’s filing asks for an expedited ruling from the Superior Court, “so that the wrongfully convicted and wrongly incarcerated (Munchinski) can finally be released.”

There has been no indication of when the court could consider the requests.