Death row inmate fighting for a new trial
Butler County's only death row inmate has filed a hefty response to a county court judge's decision to reject his request for a new trial.
A Butler County jury sentenced Donald Mitchell Tedford, now 67, to death in 1987 after finding him guilty of raping and murdering Jeanine Revak, 22, on Jan. 10, 1986. During the trial Tedford had his attorney offer no defense, but since then he has appealed his conviction and penalty across various courts, up to the federal level and back to the County Common Pleas Court where President Judge Thomas Doerr denied his request for a new trial.
But Tedford, through his current lawyer, has filed a response to Doerr's ruling, writing “there is something seriously wrong with this case” and going on to question several things related to the case.
The filing claims there are hundreds of pages of documents collected by Pennsylvania State Police that Tedford and his attorneys don't have access to, and requests DNA testing be done to determine if there are any bodily fluids on the victim's clothes and, if so, whose they might be.
Many of the arguments made in the most recent filing are contained in previous appeals filed by Tedford, and have already been rejected by Doerr.
Read more about the Tedford case in Tuesday's Butler Eagle.
