Prosecutor trying to block teen’s appeal in stabbings
GREENSBURG – A prosecutor wants to block the appeal challenging a judge’s decision a defendant must stand trial as an adult in a Pennsylvania school stabbing rampage when he was just 16.
Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck responded to the appeal filed last week on behalf of Alex Hribal, now 18. The response was filed Monday, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review first reported.
Peck argued in his filing the judge’s decision last month is sound and the appeal would unnecessarily delay a case that’s already dragged on for more than two years.
“It is not in the interest of justice nor the wishes of the numerous victims … that the matter be further delayed by an appeal to the Superior Court,” Peck wrote.
Hribal is charged with aggravated assault and attempted homicide, plus a school weapons violation, in the April 9, 2014 attacks at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville.
Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey has acknowledged Hribal committed the crimes, walking robotically through the halls before classes began, slashing and stabbing 20 fellow students and a security guard with two 8-inch kitchen knives he brought from home.
Thomassey wants the case tried in juvenile court, where Hribal would face incarceration only until he’s 21, contending the boy’s mental health issues would be better dealt with in a juvenile treatment setting.
Psychological experts hired by the defense and prosecution agree that Hribal stabbed the students in a macabre homage to the Columbine school massacre suspects, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Those boys killed 13 people and wounded 24 others before killing themselves at their high school in suburban Denver. Hribal carried out his attack on Harris’ birthday, because school was out on his preferred date, April 20, 2014, the 15th anniversary of Columbine, the doctors testified last year.
Common Pleas Judge Christopher Feliciani last month rejected the defense arguments, however, and agreed with Peck that the seriousness and enormity of the attack, and the risk that Hribal could re-offend if he’s released at age 21, made adult court more appropriate.
Four of Hribal’s student victims were critically injured, though all survived. Peck noted in arguing against the appeal that Hribal faces a potential maximum of more than 800 years in prison if he’s convicted on every charge.
“There was no abuse of discretion and the record fully supports the trial court’s determination that Hribal failed to prove, by preponderance of the evidence, transferring the above matter to juvenile court would serve the public interest,” Peck wrote.
The judge didn’t immediately rule Tuesday on whether to allow the appeal to the higher court. Hribal’s trial is tentatively scheduled for June 20, but that’s expected to be postponed.