Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 9, 2006 21:08:33 GMT -5
5th appeal
Anthony DiFrisco, on death row in N.J. for nearly 18 years, will get a life term instead.
By Angela Delli Santi
Associated Press
TRENTON - A hit man who said he was paid $2,500 to kill a Maplewood pizzeria owner 20 years ago had his death sentence set aside by New Jersey's Supreme Court yesterday in his fifth appeal to the court.
The 4-3 ruling sent Anthony DiFrisco's case back to trial court so he can be sentenced to life in prison. DiFrisco will then be removed from Trenton State Prison's death row, where he has spent most of the last 18 years.
"I'm obviously very, very pleased," said DiFrisco's public defender, Lawrence Lustberg. "It is a closely divided court that highlights the fact that there really is no social consensus in our highest court that this guy should die. Under those circumstances, I think there is no way he should be executed."
The appeal centered on complex procedural issues involving the type and timing of reviews afforded in capital cases.
In 1994, the court narrowly affirmed DiFrisco's death sentence. In a review a year later, the court - with one different member - determined that the sentence had been imposed properly. The latest appeal contended that if the two proceedings had been combined, as such hearings are today, a majority of justices would have voted for a life sentence.
"We thought it would be a close case, and we felt we would wind up on the winning side," said Assistant Prosecutor Kenneth Ply, who argued the case for the state. "But we have to live with the decision the Supreme Court makes."
DiFrisco admitted he shot pizza shop owner Edward Potcher at close range four times on Aug. 12, 1986. He confessed after being arrested in New York for traffic violations and car theft. Court records show he believed he would be better served by implicating a "higher-up" in the murder.
DiFrisco said a man named Jack Franciotti, a former fellow prison inmate, had paid him to kill Potcher because Potcher was going to inform police of illegal activities by Franciotti. He also said Franciotti had forgiven a $500 drug debt.
The court records say DiFrisco, however, backed out of a plan to call Franciotti to tape a conversation implicating him in the murder. Because of insufficient evidence, Franciotti was not arrested in the case. An Essex County grand jury subsequently indicted DiFrisco.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/14975158.htm
Anthony DiFrisco, on death row in N.J. for nearly 18 years, will get a life term instead.
By Angela Delli Santi
Associated Press
TRENTON - A hit man who said he was paid $2,500 to kill a Maplewood pizzeria owner 20 years ago had his death sentence set aside by New Jersey's Supreme Court yesterday in his fifth appeal to the court.
The 4-3 ruling sent Anthony DiFrisco's case back to trial court so he can be sentenced to life in prison. DiFrisco will then be removed from Trenton State Prison's death row, where he has spent most of the last 18 years.
"I'm obviously very, very pleased," said DiFrisco's public defender, Lawrence Lustberg. "It is a closely divided court that highlights the fact that there really is no social consensus in our highest court that this guy should die. Under those circumstances, I think there is no way he should be executed."
The appeal centered on complex procedural issues involving the type and timing of reviews afforded in capital cases.
In 1994, the court narrowly affirmed DiFrisco's death sentence. In a review a year later, the court - with one different member - determined that the sentence had been imposed properly. The latest appeal contended that if the two proceedings had been combined, as such hearings are today, a majority of justices would have voted for a life sentence.
"We thought it would be a close case, and we felt we would wind up on the winning side," said Assistant Prosecutor Kenneth Ply, who argued the case for the state. "But we have to live with the decision the Supreme Court makes."
DiFrisco admitted he shot pizza shop owner Edward Potcher at close range four times on Aug. 12, 1986. He confessed after being arrested in New York for traffic violations and car theft. Court records show he believed he would be better served by implicating a "higher-up" in the murder.
DiFrisco said a man named Jack Franciotti, a former fellow prison inmate, had paid him to kill Potcher because Potcher was going to inform police of illegal activities by Franciotti. He also said Franciotti had forgiven a $500 drug debt.
The court records say DiFrisco, however, backed out of a plan to call Franciotti to tape a conversation implicating him in the murder. Because of insufficient evidence, Franciotti was not arrested in the case. An Essex County grand jury subsequently indicted DiFrisco.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/14975158.htm