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Thread: David Allen Sattazahn - Pennsylvania

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    David Allen Sattazahn - Pennsylvania


    David A. Sattazahn in 1999




    Facts of the Crime:

    Convicted for the 1987 Palm Sunday murder of Richard D. Boyer, Sr., 36, of Newmanstown, manager of the Heidelberg Family Restaurant.

    Sattazahn was sentenced to death in Berks County on February 16, 1999.

  2. #2
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    Sattazahn's sentence was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on July 24, 2008.

    http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/docu...aReversals.pdf

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    No. 08-8798 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
    Title:
    David Allen Sattazahn, Petitioner
    v.
    Pennsylvania
    Docketed: February 19, 2009
    Linked with 08A499
    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District
    Case Nos.: (509-511 CAP)
    Decision Date: July 24, 2008
    Rehearing Denied: September 17, 2008

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Dec 4 2008 Application (08A499) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from December 16, 2008 to February 14, 2009, submitted to Justice Souter.
    Dec 8 2008 Application (08A499) granted by Justice Souter extending the time to file until February 14, 2009.
    Feb 17 2009 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due March 23, 2009)
    Mar 25 2009 Order extending time to file response to petition to and including April 22, 2009.
    Apr 20 2009 Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including May 6, 2009.
    May 6 2009 Brief of respondent Pennsylvania in opposition filed.
    May 8 2009 Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including May 7, 2009.
    May 20 2009 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 4, 2009.
    Jun 8 2009 Petition DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/08-8798.htm

  4. #4
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    Court ruling ups the ante for double murderer facing the death penalty

    By Matt Miller
    pennlive.com

    A midstate man who has been on and off the execution list for the April 1987 murder of a restaurant manager had his odds of returning to death row increased this week by a state court ruling.

    A state Superior Court panel decided that a jury which will consider whether David Allen Sattazahn should receive the death penalty can hear evidence about his conviction for another killing that occurred eight months after manager's murder.

    That decision overturns a Berks County judge's ruling that barred prosecutors from telling the jurors about the later killing.

    Sattazahn's case has taken a twisted course since the former Lebanon County man was arrested for the April 12, 1987 robbery/murder of 36-year-old Richard Boyer, who was shot while leaving his Heidelberg Township restaurant.

    Sattazahn was first convicted of first-degree murder in 1991 for Boyer's killing. The jury deadlocked on whether he should receive the death penalty, so he was sentenced to life in prison.

    After winning an appeal of that conviction, Sattazahn was retried for the Boyer slaying. The second time, he was again convicted of first-degree murder and the jury ruled that he should be sentenced to death.

    That death sentence, imposed in 1999, was upheld by the Superior Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Yet in 2006, Berks County Judge Scott D. Keller ruled that Sattazahn deserved a new hearing on whether he should receive the death penalty because his lawyer had been ineffective in arguing against execution. Keller let Sattazahn's murder conviction stand, but ordered that another jury be selected just to rule on the death penalty issue.

    Another legal snag cropped up as jury selection on the death penalty issue was about to begin in March 2014. The prosecution announced that it planned to tell the jurors about Sattazahn's third-degree murder conviction for a slaying that occurred in December 1987, more than eight months after Boyer was killed.

    Sattazahn's lawyers objected, arguing that the jury should hear only about crimes he committed before the Boyer murder. Another county judge, John A. Boccabella, agreed to bar prosecutors from mentioning the third-degree murder case.

    The district attorney's office appealed, and once again Sattazahn's case headed for the Superior Court.

    In that court's latest opinion, Judge Victor P. Stabile found that Boccabella was wrong to bar the DA from telling jurors about the third-degree murder conviction, which resulted from Sattazahn's guilty plea for the killing of 26-year-old Michael Protivak of Schuylkill County.

    Interestingly, Stabile based his conclusion in part on a 2000 state Supreme Court ruling on one of the unsuccessful appeals Sattazahn's filed after his second trial for the Boyer murder. In that decision, the Supreme Court rejected Sattazahn's argument that crimes he committed after the Boyer slaying shouldn't have been used against him during his 1999 retrial.

    "The fact that the offenses occurred after the (Boyer) murder is irrelevant under the law," the high court ruled in 2000.

    The new decision by Stabile's court ups the ante for Sattazahn because evidence of a "significant history" of felony convictions is an aggravating circumstance prosecutors can cite in pressing for the death penalty.

    http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...rt_river_index
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #5
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    Trial to determine if man convicted in 1987 restaurant murder will get death penalty

    By Liam Migdail-Smith
    The Reading Eagle

    READING, PA - The man convicted in a 1987 Palm Sunday murder at the Heidelberg Family Restaurant may learn his fate this spring after more than a quarter-century of legal drama.

    David A. Sattazahn, 55, is scheduled to face trial May 17. Jurors won't be tasked with deciding innocence or guilt but rather whether Sattazahn should face the death sentence or a prison term.

    Sattazahn had earlier been sentenced to death but has since been granted the opportunity to have another jury hear his case and decide his punishment. The former Newmanstown, Lebanon County, man remains on death row at a state prison in Greene County.

    Sattazahn's attorneys and prosecutors from the state attorney general's office met briefly before Berks County Senior Judge John A. Boccabella on Thursday to discuss next steps in the case.

    Sattazahn and Jeffrey S. Hammer were convicted of the ambush-style slaying of Richard D. Boyer Sr., a manager at the restaurant in Heidelberg Township.

    Investigators said the men accosted and shot Boyer, 36, as he left the restaurant about 11 p.m. April 12, 1987. They took nearly $2,000 and a check for $266.

    Sattazahn's case has been marked by close to three decades of twists and turns, including a policy-setting U.S. Supreme Court decision.

    He was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and related offenses in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison after a jury deadlocked over whether he should receive the death penalty.

    In 1992, he pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for a separate December 1987 slaying in Schuylkill County.

    Sattazahn got a new trial for the Berks case in 1999 after the state Superior Court ruled that then-Judge Scott D. Keller erred in his instructions to the 1991 jury. But the 1999 jury also found Sattazahn guilty and, that time, sentenced him to death.

    Sattazahn's appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2003 ruled prosecutors were allowed to seek the death penalty in the second trial.

    Then in 2006, Keller overturned the death sentence. The judge said Sattazahn's 1999 trial lawyer John T. Adams - now the Berks district attorney - was ineffective because he didn't seek a mental health evaluation.

    The resentencing trial scheduled for May would determine if Sattazahn's death sentence is reinstated.

    Jurors had been scheduled to hear the case April 3, but Boccabella granted a brief delay Thursday to give two state prosecutors who were recently assigned to the case a chance to catch up.

    Sattazahn's attorneys, Kevin Feeney and Douglas J. Waltman, argued against the delay, saying they were prepared to continue on schedule.

    "The defendant himself, David Sattazahn, doesn't want any further delay in this case that began in the 1980s," Waltman said.

    Boccabella said not giving the prosecutors some time to review the case after taking it over would give them a handicap. But he said he doesn't want to see further delays now that a new date has been set.
    Hammer, who testified against Sattazahn, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in 1992 and was sentenced to 19 to 55 years in state prison. State records no longer show him as an inmate.

    http://www.readingeagle.com/news/art...-death-penalty

  6. #6
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    Prosecutors withdraw death penalty from Berks murder case

    By Stephanie Weaver
    Reading Eagle

    After spending more than 18 years on death row, David Sattazahn no longer faces the possibility of the death penalty for the 1987 Palm Sunday murder at the Heidelberg Family Restaurant.

    Sattazahn, 55, formerly of Lebanon County, was originally set to stand for a trial this month to determine if he would be sentenced to death or life in prison for the fatal shooting of Richard D. Boyer Sr. on April 12, 1987.

    But during a hearing before Senior Judge John A. Boccabella this morning, prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office officially withdrew the death penalty in the case.

    Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony W. Forray said the decision was made after consulting with eight family members, the victim's four children and four of his siblings.

    Several family members were in court for the hearing and made statements, begging Boccabella to end the ongoing cycle of trials, appeals and hearings that have plagued the last 26 years and continued to force them to relive the pain of Boyer's murder.

    Boccabella then proceeded to sentence Sattazahn to life in prison without the possibility of parole, telling the murderer he hopes he dies in prison alone.

    Sattazahn and Jeffrey S. Hammer were convicted of the ambush-style killing of Boyer, who was a manager at the restaurant in Heidelberg Township. Investigators said the men accosted and shot Boyer, 36, as he left the restaurant about 11 p.m.

    Sattazahn and Hammer took nearly $2,000 and a check for $266.

    Sattazahn's case has gone through numerous twists and turns throughout the last three decades and factored into a policy-setting U.S. Supreme Court decision.

    A jury convicted him of first-degree murder, robbery and related offenses in 1991. But the jurors could not reach a unanimous decision about whether he should receive the death penalty, so Sattazahn was sentenced to life in prison.

    Sattazahn received a new trial in the case in 1999 after the state Superior Court ruled that then-Judge Scott D. Keller erred in his instructions to the jury during the 1991 trial.

    In the new trial, the jury also found Sattazahn guilty and sentenced him to death.

    Sattazahn filed an appeal that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2003 that prosecutors were allowed to seek the death penalty in the second trial.

    However, in 2006, Keller overturned the death sentence, saying that Sattazahn's 1999 trial lawyer, John T. Adams — who is now the Berks district attorney — was ineffective because he didn't seek a mental health evaluation.

    The Attorney General's Office took over the prosecution in 2008 when Adams became district attorney.

    http://www.readingeagle.com/news/art...late=mobileart
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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