A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals spent 45 minutes this week pondering whether to void convictions in the Anthony Milano murder case.
In December 1987, Frank R. Chester and Richard R. Laird murdered Milano after escorting him out of a Bucks County tavern and kidnapping him to a nearby wooded area.
Upon their arrival, Chester kicked and pushed Milano. Then Laird hacked out Milano’s throat with a box cutter, according to court records.
Milano was gay, and prosecutors declared it an antigay hate crime, though there were no hate-crime protections in place for the LGBT community.
In 1988, Chester and Laird were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. But Chester’s first-degree murder conviction was voided in 2011, due to improper jury instructions by the trial judge.
Now Chester wants his remaining convictions voided — including second-degree murder and kidnapping — on the basis that his trial attorney had a conflict of interest.
Chester’s trial attorney, Thomas F. Edwards Jr., denies having a conflict of interest in the case.
Last year, U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones 2d rejected Chester’s claim, but Chester appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Jan. 13, Judges Thomas L. Ambro, Thomas M. Hardiman and Kent A. Jordan heard arguments from both sides.
Jules Epstein, an attorney for Chester, said Edwards’ life was in “absolute collapse” during Chester’s trial, partly due to a DUI charge pending against him in Bucks County. He said Edwards’ pending DUI charge and other personal problems impeded his ability to zealously advocate for Chester.
“We’re not saying [Edwards] deliberately threw his client under the bus,” Epstein said. “But he didn’t give him undivided loyalty and the quality representation he deserved.”
Epstein said Edwards failed to properly screen jurors and failed to inform jurors of Laird’s extensive criminal background, among other oversights. Epstein also claimed that Jones made multiple factual and legal errors when rejecting Chester’s conflict-of-interest claim.
For example, Jones misquoted an important court case, and also misidentified the case in his ruling, according to Epstein.
Jordan asked if Chester’s attorneys were blurring the lines that separate an attorney’s irrelevant personal problems from a bona-fide conflict of interest.
“How do you morph, ‘My life is a mess’ into a conflict of interest?” he posed. “Aren’t you erasing the lines?”
Jordan also asked why Chester’s advocates didn’t run a criminal-background check on Edwards prior to 2000, if his life was in such obvious turmoil.
But Epstein said Bucks County officials lulled Chester’s advocates into complacency by making misleading statements about Edwards.
Of the three judges, Ambro appeared the most sympathetic to Chester’s claim. He said Chester clearly had ineffective assistance of counsel during his 1988 trial. But Ambro stopped short of expressing agreement that Edwards had a conflict of interest, which is the claim before the judges.
Bucks County Chief of Appeals Stephen B. Harris argued that Edwards didn’t have a conflict of interest, and that Chester’s remaining convictions shouldn’t be disturbed.
He said Chester’s attorneys realize Edwards’ DUI charge didn’t pose a conflict, so they added irrelevant personal problems to bolster their case.
Jordan asked if prosecutors will re-try Chester for first-degree murder.
“We’ve got to go back and meet with the [Milano] family and police officers,” Harris replied. “We’ll discuss it with them and come up with a decision.”
Harris said the decision will be made after the court rules on whether Chester’s remaining convictions should be voided.
At the conclusion of the 45-minute hearing, Ambro said: “We’ll take the matter under advisement.”
A decision isn’t expected for several months.
Outside the courtroom, Harris expressed guarded optimism about the case.
“Mr. Chester’s attorneys are trying to put as much into the record as possible, in the hope that the full weight of it will influence the court,” Harris told PGN. “I don’t think that’s an effective strategy.”
Attorneys for Chester declined to comment for this story.
Chester, 46, and Laird, 51, remain on death row in state prisons. Laird’s bid for a new trial is pending in state Supreme Court.