Wallace gets retrial in homicide
After nearly four years of inactivity, the retrial of William “Tippy” Wallace Jr., in the murder of 15-year-old Tina Spalla, will finally proceed.
On Wednesday, Washington County President Judge Katherine Emery ordered the case assigned to Judge John F. DiSalle and any outstanding petitions or motions be addressed within the next 30 days.
In May 2011, retired Washington County President Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca was tasked with assigning a trial judge and attorney for Wallace for his retrial. O’Dell Seneca, who retired this week, never did, even after the district attorney’s office made several attempts to resolve the issue.
Wallace, now 60, was convicted by a Somerset County jury in 1985 of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death.
He was also convicted of second-degree murder for killing 63-year-old Carl Luisi, of Canonsburg, and was sentenced to life in prison. After a series of appeals, a federal judge ordered Wallace be retried only in the Spalla case. Spalla and Luisi were killed when Wallace robbed Carl’s Cleaners, Adams Avenue, Canonsburg, in August 1979. This will be the fourth time Wallace will be tried for the murders.
Over the course of 18 months, the district attorney’s office filed three motions requesting the assignment of a trial judge and a status conference. Former District Attorney Steven Toprani filed two of the motions. Current District Attorney Gene Vittone filed the last Nov. 21, 2012.
According to Vittone’s motion, the parties met with O’Dell Seneca May 18, 2011, for a status conference to address the retrial of Wallace for one count of homicide in the death of Spalla, which was previously ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Sean McLaughlin.
Wallace was present for the conference, but did not have an attorney, court records show. During that time, the court was “made aware that Wallace filed a pro se petition in the U.S. District Court asking that he be released from death row and that the Commonwealth be barred from retrying him for the death of Tina Spalla,” court documents said.
“The court was also made aware that the Commonwealth filed a response in opposition to the defendant’s motion, asking the U.S. District Court to permit it to retry Wallace and advising that it would not pursue a capital sentence on retrial,” Vittone said in his motion.
The conclusion of the status conference was that the appointment of a trial judge would be delayed until a resolution to Wallace’s petition was reached. On May 24, 2011, McLaughlin denied Wallance’s petition, noting the district attorney’s office was not barred by federal law from retrying Wallace for Spalla’s death.
The matter was then discussed with O’Dell Seneca, who expressed “the difficulty in assigning judge and counsel due to possible conflict as a result of the age of the case,” court documents said.
Vittone could not be reached for comment. First Assistant District Attorney Chad Schneider, who is familiar with the case, said O’Dell Seneca was concerned “a lot of people had come into contact with the case.”
“She was considering assigning it to an outside judge,” he said. “Not one within the county.”
Schneider said three years and seven months is a long time for a case to sit “in limbo.”
“We couldn’t do anything until there was a judge assigned. There was no judge to take anything to because one had not been appointed by O’Dell Seneca,” he said. “I don’t know what her thinking was, why she didn’t do anything with the case.”
Schneider said there is no statue of limitations on a homicide case. A court date is not yet set, but Schneider believes the case will quickly proceed once an attorney is appointed for Wallace.
Wallace remains at the State Correctional Institution at Greene, in Greene County, where he has been housed for 29 years.