Hearing held for convicted killer ‘Tippy’ Wallace
By Gideon Bradshaw
The Observer-Reporter
William “Tippy” Wallace appeared in Washington County Court Friday in a procedural step related to a new trial he may face in the 1979 killing of Tina Spalla, 15, during the robbery of a Canonsburg dry cleaner.
If held, the trial will be Wallace’s fourth for homicide in Washington County.
Wallace, 62, is serving a life sentence for the second-degree murder of Carl Luisi, 63, who owned Carl’s Cleaners. Wallace killed Luisi during the same robbery, which netted $227.
Dennis Popojas, Wallace’s court-appointed attorney, told Judge John F. DiSalle that Popojas intends to file a motion under Rule 600 of the state Criminal Code. The rule gives prosecutors 365 days – excluding delays caused by the defendant – to bring a case to trial.
If successful, it will mean the dismissal of the charge in the younger victim’s death.
A U.S. district judge vacated Wallace’s death-penalty conviction in Spalla’s death in 2007 but affirmed his conviction for second-degree murder in the death of 63-year-old Carl Luisi. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court’s decision in 2008.
“My point is, we begin this timeline back in ’08, and there’s some question as to why this case wasn’t tried in a timely fashion,” Popojas said following the proceeding.
He expects to file the motion in a week or two.
Deputy District Attorney Jerry Moschetta said he would “present evidence as to what efforts my office took to bring Mr. Wallace to trial,” including witness testimony at a hearing on the motion.
Asked by DiSalle whether he had any questions, Wallace said he had “not necessarily a question, but I would like to speak.”
Popojas then conferred briefly with his client before Popojas said, “There’s nothing further, your Honor. Thank you.”
Five members of Spalla’s family were present. One member said the group declined comment.
Popojas, who was assigned the case a year ago, and Wallace met for the first time in the courtroom before the hearing.
It was also their first time communicating.
Wallace previously didn’t answer mail from Popojas or list him among approved visitors at SCI-Greene, where he’s incarcerated.
Wallace refused to appear on camera from state prison for a status conference that was scheduled in April.
Wallace’s first trial, in 1980, ended in a hung jury. The next year, an Erie County jury convicted him, but the state Supreme court overturned that conviction in 1983.
The federal court vacated the conviction in Spalla’s death from the 1985 trial on the basis the judge in that case didn’t admit hearsay evidence that Wallace’s accomplice, Henry Brown, said he shot Spalla.
Brown and Wallace were arrested in their Wheeling, W.Va., neighborhood days after the homicides. Brown was sentenced to two consecutive life terms but made a deal with then-district attorney John Pettit to amend his sentence to 10 to 20 years in exchange for his cooperation in Wallace’s third trial.
Following the vacating of the first-degree murder conviction from that trial, it took until May 2011, when a status conference took place before then-president judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca – who’d assigned the case to herself that month – before there was any proceeding in Washington County court.
There was no further movement until January 2015, when her successor, President Judge Katherine B. Emery, assigned the case to DiSalle.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/201...yx2019_wallace
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