Oct 26, 2006 By The 3 min read

A three-judge panel from the state Superior Court will decide if convicted Connellsville arsonist Harry J. Collins should have a new trial. Attorney Thomas W. Shaffer argued that all of the statements Collins gave to investigators – eight in total – should have been suppressed because he is mildly mentally retarded and has auditory hallucinations.

He also argued during a Tuesday appearance before Judges Maureen Lally-Green, Seamus P. McCaffery and John T. Kelly that two cases lodged against Collins were wrongly consolidated, making it more likely for jurors to convict him.

Earlier this year, Collins, 59, of South Pittsburgh Street, Connellsville, was convicted in Fayette County Court of arson and risking a catastrophe in the Feb. 23, 2005, fire at Wesley United Methodist Church and the Aug. 16, 2004, fire at Margaret Lewellen’s 1116 Race St. home.

Jurors acquitted Collins of setting fires at the Pujia Hair Salon on June 27, 2004, and a 407 S. Arch St. residence on Nov. 29, 2004.

Those were four of the nearly 30 arsons that happened in Connellsville over a 2 1/2-year period.

Both city police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked on the case.

Collins was sentenced to serve four to 20 years in a state prison in February.

Shaffer argued that before the case went to trial, a judge should have stopped prosecutors from using any of the statements Collins gave because he is mentally impaired. Collins has a first-grade level education, according to testimony presented at his trial.

Shaffer also argued that a judge’s reasoning for consolidating the arsons was flawed. He said Judge Gerald R. Solomon reasoned that that the arsons were all set within blocks of Collins’ home, in a similar manner and place, Shaffer said.

But the attorney said that more than two dozen arsons occurred during an eight-month period, and others were arrested for some of them.

“Simply because the fire was started with a match or lighter on the exterior of a structure to combustible material is not sufficient to show a common scheme, plan or design,” Shaffer wrote. “The evidence regarding the four separate fires confused the jury and if the cases were not tried together, (Collins) would not have been convicted based on the flimsy evidence each case had standing alone.”

Collins is currently serving his sentence at the State Correctional Institution at Laurel Highlands, a minimum-security prison in Somerset County. The facility has a separate housing unit for older male inmates, according the state Department of Corrections Web site.

The judges will make a decision on the case at a later date.