Normalville man convicted of shooting deer-spotter
A Normalville man accused of shooting a teenage neighbor who was spotting deer near his house was convicted of aggravated assault in an unusual non-jury trial held Wednesday in Fayette County Court.
Jeremy James Pritts, 36, was also convicted of reckless endangerment and two counts of simple assault, but Judge Steve P. Leskinen found him not guilty of the more serious of the two counts of aggravated assault Pritts initially faced.
Assistant District Attorney Douglas S. Sepic presented the entire case without Pritts’ attorney, William Difendefer, present. When Difenderfer failed to appear at the time scheduled for the trial to begin, Leskinen discovered that the attorney filed a motion to continue the proceedings, but the motion had never been granted.
Leskinen said that although the reasoning Difendefer gave for the continuance was that he had another hearing scheduled in Washington County, the attorney should have been clear about the conflict much sooner.
Pritts’ non-jury trial had been scheduled six weeks ago, Leskinen said, and he was not willing to continue it based on an unanswered motion brought before the court last week when Leskinen was not present.
Pritts sat alone at the defense counsel table as Sepic called the victim in the case, Cortney Snyder, 19, of Normalville.
Snyder testified she was riding in the back of her father’s pickup truck on Nov. 11, 2012, with her back against the cab, shining a spotlight into fields along Foxburg Road near where she lives with her parents.
“I had the spotlight on, I was spotting uphill,” Snyder said.
“I saw a flash, heard a bang,” she said, and at the same time felt the burning, stinging pain of shotgun pellets hitting her upper body.
“I fell to the side, and the only thing I could say was, ‘I’m hit,'” the teen testified.
Sepic asked where she was hit, and Snyder said, “My face, my chest, my left hand, my left arm, my right arm, my stomach.” She testified she was taken to Highlands Hospital in Connellsville and then to UPMC Mercy in Pittsburgh.
“I had to get open-heart surgery the next morning to remove the BB that was an eighth of an inch away from my heart,” Snyder testified. The teen told the court she still has six BBs lodged in her body, including three in her face.
Snyder testified the truck she was in was about 30 yards away from Pritts’ porch, where she said she saw the flash that accompanied the sound of gunfire.
When Sepic was through with direct examination, Leskinen asked Pritts if he had any questions of the witness.
Pritts said no.
Sepic also called the victim’s father, Richard Snyder, who testified he was in the passenger seat of the truck on the night of the incident.
He said at first he thought his daughter was joking, but when he got out, he could see the blood on her face. Richard Snyder also testified that he could see Pritts standing on his porch.
“I looked up and seen him standing on the porch, backing away like he was trying to get in the shadows,” Richard Snyder testified.
Additionally, state police Trooper Anthony Vito testified that when he first questioned Pritts about the shooting, Pritts denied knowing anything about it, but after some prompting he admitted to firing the shotgun.
“He said he felt the truck was spotlighting his house,” Vito testified.
Sepic rested his case after the officer’s testimony, and Leskinen announced he had received word that Difenderfer could be in the courtroom by noon. Leskinen then recessed the trial for approximately 45 minutes until Difenderfer arrived.
Although Difenderfer believed the trial date had been moved to March 17 and was unprepared to call any witnesses or present evidence, he called Pritts to the stand. Difenderfer asked if Pritts had problems with poachers near his property, and Pritts testified, “We had a number of gunshots right in the area.” He said he had asked the township for help, putting up signs or other warnings against shooting near his home.
Pritts testified he was in his house and thought he heard a gunshot outside, so he went outside and fired his 12-gauge Mossberg as a deterrent. Next, he testified he saw light coming in through the window and shining on the television, and he went outside to see what was happening.
Difenderfer asked Pritts if it was his intention to hurt anyone, and Pritts said, “No, I just wanted to deter them, keep them moving.” He said he was concerned about the safety of his children and animals.
Pritts also testified he was not aware there was a passenger in the bed of the truck when he fired the shotgun and that he wasn’t trying to fire directly at the truck. According to Pritts, the spotlight was not on when he fired, and the truck was more like 65 or 70 yards away, twice the distance estimated by the victim.
On cross-examination, Sepic asked, “Is it fair to say that in the Marines and as a hunter, you learned you don’t point a gun at something and discharge it unless you intend to hit it?”
“Yes,” Pritts said.
In his closing argument, Difenderfer said, “(Pritts) had the ability to employ lethal force here, but that wasn’t his intention at all. This was to be a warning shot. He had no intent to hurt someone.”
“He was trying to ward off would-be poachers,” said Difenderfer.
Sepic, in his closing argument, said, “The fact that his man points a shotgun at a moving vehicle is in itself, in the eyes of the commonwealth, recklessness and extreme indifference to human life.”
Leskinen concluded that the crime did not fit the legal definition of a first-degree felony aggravated assault. That level of indifference, he said, rises to a level equal to the malice necessary to convict someone of third-degree murder.
However, Leskinen said, “As you pointed out, Mr. Sepic, that was a pretty good shot, for not shooting directly at the truck. (Pritts) had to know he could cause a bodily injury,” even though he didn’t know there was someone in the back of the truck.
That level of indifference, Leskinen said, more closely matched the second-degree felony aggravated assault of which the judge found him guilty.
Outside the courtroom, Sepic said, “I’m totally disappointed in the verdict. I have no doubt he was aiming the gun at the vehicle.”
He said Cortney Snyder was fortunate not to have suffered worse injuries or death.
The victim and her father also expressed disappointment.
“The wheels of justice turn slow, but they didn’t hardly turn at all today,” said Richard Snyder.
Although Pritts will likely face jail time, Richard Snyder said he didn’t think it would be nearly enough.
Cortney Snyder said she was glad the ordeal was over.
She showed the bump in her left hand, where one of the six pellets remains, and said that doctors were not going to remove them because of concerns that nerve damage would result.
She said when the weather is cold, the pellets are especially painful and that she’s been trying to stay in the house.
She was not able to finish her senior year of high school because of the shooting, and she said she’s hoping to finish school some time in the future.
Asked whether she still goes spotlighting, Cortney Snyder said she’s gone once or twice, “But then I have nightmares all night.”
Pritts will be sentenced before Leskinen on March 17 at 9:30 a.m.