FAYETTE COUNTY, Pa. — Citing a conflict of interest involving two senior judges, a Fayette County judge has recused herself from a resentencing hearing in a 30-year-old homicide.
Judge Nancy Vernon on Friday signed an order recusing herself from Scott Wayne Blystone's resentencing hearing, which is scheduled for October.
Blystone, 57, has been on death row since 1984 for his conviction in the death of Dalton Smithburger Jr. Prosecutors contended Blystone robbed Smithburger of $13 in 1983 before shooting him six times in the back of the head.
Blystone, who presented no defense or witnesses during the penalty phase of his trial, won a new sentencing hearing on appeal. Although Blystone told the trial judge in 1984 that he did not want to call anyone to testify on his behalf because "he didn't want anybody else brought into it," an appeals court found he had ineffective counsel.
Vernon in her order indicated she is recusing herself because Blystone's attorneys have alleged misconduct on the part of two of Blystone's prosecutors, Gerald Solomon and Ralph Warman.
Solomon and Warman are now retired judges, but each serve part time as senior judges.
Blystone's attorneys first alleged possible misconduct in 2011, when homicide charges against David J. Munchinski were dismissed. Munchinski, formerly Latrobe, spent more than 20 years in prison for a double homicide in 1977 in Bear Rocks.
Munchinski was released from prison in 2011 when a federal appeals court ruled his conviction in Fayette County was "highly suspect" and tainted by evidence tampering, prosecutorial misconduct and an unreliable "eyewitness" who was not at the murder scene.
Warman and Solomon were two of the prosecutors who handled Munchinski's case. Blystone's attorneys want Munchinski's case files included in discovery in their client's case.
"Defendant alleges that the former prosecutors engaged in a course of misconduct and desires to review these files to further investigate the Blystone record, former protocol and procedure," Vernon wrote in her recusal order. "Defense counsel avers that this investigation may significantly have implications in the penalty phase."
In addition, Vernon noted that Blystone's attorneys want a recording between Blystone and a witness at his trial, Miles Miller, suppressed.
"The prosecutors involved in the wiretap and in the case materials requested are currently senior judges actively performing duties in the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County," Vernon wrote in her recusal order. "As these motions may involve testimony and decisions bearing upon the credibility and conduct of present judges and former prosecutors, to avoid a potential conflict of interest, this judge recuses."
Another judge has not been assigned to the case.
Hearings on the defense's two motions are scheduled for Sept. 6.
This article was written by Channel 11's news exchange partners at TribLIVE.