Posted on 05/18/2018 9:25:24 AM PDT by Simon Green
A Pennsylvania cop killer on death row wants the state Supreme Court to toss out his 2017 conviction.
Attorneys for 35-year-old Eric Frein will argue Thursday investigators in Pike County violated his right to remain silent the night he was captured for murdering one state officer, Cpl. Bryon Dickson, and seriously wounding another, Trooper Alex Douglass, nearly four years ago.
Frein led state and federal law enforcement on a 48-day manhunt through the Pocono Mountains after gunning down Dickson and Douglass during a shift change at the Blooming Grove barracks on Sept. 12, 2014. He was identified as a suspect early-on in the case after a neighbor found his vehicle abandoned in a drainage pond near the shooting, according to the Associated Press.
Prosecutors called Frein a terrorist and said he ambushed the troopers in hopes of starting a revolution. Frein told investigators he chose the barracks in rural Pike County, about 30 miles south of the New York border, because of the desolate, mountain landscape surrounding it.
In April 2017, jurors found Frein guilty of murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, terrorism, possessing weapons of mass destruction, possessing an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering others and firing a gun into an occupied structure. He was sentenced to death a week later.
Now Frein’s legal team said investigators refused to let his family’s defense attorney speak with Frein the night he was arrested at an abandoned air strip 30 miles from the barracks. Instead, he was interrogated for more than three hours, during which time he confessed to the killings.
“The questioning at issue occurred after Mr. Frein was read his Miranda warnings, invoked his right to silence by clearly informing the troopers that he did not want to speak about any crime and refused to sign a Miranda waiver,” his lawyers argued in a brief filed in November, according to the Associated Press.
Pike County prosecutors argue Frein never asserted his right to legal representation and balked at claims that victim impact testimony allowed during the trial hurt him.
Although Frein currently sits on Pennsylvania’s death row, it remains unclear if he will ever face execution. Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration ordered executions to a halt in February 2015, preferring instead to wait for the results of a Senate task force’s review of the state’s death penalty system.
More than 170 people sit on death row in Pennsylvania and the state hasn’t executed a single one since 1999. Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty four decades ago, Pennsylvania carried out only three executions.
I know it looks real bad...
Begins to look that in order for justice to be served, in these cases, it will be necessary to bypass a trial an allow the cops to execute the perps when they are apprehended. I mean “death rows” across the country are full. When do we get the sentences carried out that the courts prescribed.
Because the cops are omnipotent and never go after the wrong person???
Maybe move him to Texas.
Sounds good on the surface, but at present, roadside executions for failing to lay down fast enough are a bit of a problem.
I’d rather the expense of due process for both offenses.
“... allow the cops to execute the perps when they are apprehended.”
I don’t think we should “allow” the cops to execute the perps, I think the cops should just do it.
Not a fan of due process?
Oh joy! A nation of trigger-happy rogue cops killing anyone they don’t like.
I understand your frustration, but your solution to the problem is simply murder for the sake of convenience.
“I understand your frustration, but your solution to the problem is simply murder for the sake of convenience.”
It was tongue in cheek! I guess I should have put a sark tag on it. But the cold hard fact of the matter is that without our government carrying out the mandates of our courts, under the law, we have no justice system. There need to be legal limits imposed on just how many appeals a death row inmate can have. When I think that that Piece of $hit Charles Manson died of old age, it tells me we need to do a bunch of “fixing!” CA just imposed the death penalty on this illegal alien Mexican who killed to LEOs in the Sacramento area. He will probably outlive all of us who are over 50, unless he manages to piss off someone in prison and gets offed there by another inmate.
Texas doesn’t guarantee an execution.
Since 1819, 1,306 individuals (all but nine of whom have been men)
have been executed in Texas as of May 16, 2018.
During 2018 there have been six executions, 2 each: Black,
Hispanic, White.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Texas,_2010%E2%80%93
I say throw him out a 20 story window. At least he’ll have time to think about what he’s done till he assumes room temperature.
Notice that this sh_tball doesn’t deny that he murdered two cops. He wants to be freed on a technicality, even though he’s guilty.
“Notice that this sh_tball doesn’t deny that he murdered two cops. He wants to be freed on a technicality, even though he’s guilty.”
Isn’t that normally the case. I don’t want to see anyone put to death that doesn’t deserve it, but I think that the instances where that’s remotely possible are almost non-existent. And now today with DNA and other new evidentiary processes, it’s even more likely that those found guilty, actually are guilty!
1,306...still better than most of ALL the other States COMBINED!!
God Bless Texas...and her death penalty system!!
Just like the saying goes, “If you kill in Texas, we’ll kill you back!”
If it makes you feel better, the arresting LEOs beat him up.
Throw out the conviction?
No, they should move up his execution date.
OK - if a conviction was had, after the usual trial business - how could a violation of his Miranda rights not have come up before? Or is he now CLAIMING that simply as an avenue to get his conviction overturned?
And notice, he still isn’t denying he did it, or even his motives for doing it.
Simply an attorney grasping at excuses and bits in an attempt to undo justice.
Of course - Pennsylvania has the death penalty on the books - but no longer carries out executions. No backbone.
LODD ping.
Too bad they didn’t cave in his skull. Worms need food too.
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