Defense claims charges were faulty

By Eric Jankiewicz

Eagle Staff Writer

A man convicted of killing a motorcyclist on Route 8 is questioning the fairness of his trial last year by appealing to the state’s Superior Court. Arguments on the case will begin next week.

A jury last summer found Michael T. Burns, 39, of Houston, Pa., guilty on all charges in the death of a motorcyclist on July 26, 2016. The charges included homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, recklessly endangering another person, failure to stop at a red signal, and three counts of operating a vehicle with hazardous brake systems.

The conviction concluded a three-day trial that revolved around questions of Burns’ responsibility as a certified commercial driver to recognize the faulty braking system that resulted in the death of Dale T. Major.

Burns’ defense argued that the fault was on Burns’ employer, but prosecutors said during the trial that Burns, as a 15-year truck driving veteran, should have known better.

At the center of these two sides was testimony from Middlesex Township officer Conrad Pfeifer, who testified that the Sterling truck Burns drove that day was obviously unfit for the heavy-load task. Pfeifer was used as an expert witness. But in Burns’ appeal to the Superior Court, his defense team claims that Judge William Shaffer, who presided over the trial, should not have permitted Pfeifer to be entered as an expert witness.

During his trial, Burns testified that the truck had performed well when he first got behind the wheel. After he picked up a compressor unit at a construction site south of Butler, he approached Route 8 along Glade Mill Road. The truck’s brakes did not stop the vehicle and load from crashing through the intersection, killing Major on his motorcycle, he said.

Shaffer sentenced Burns to three to six months of incarceration, but he decided to parole him immediately, ordering him to serve six months of house arrest. Burns will also be on probation for eight-and-a-half years and must complete 250 hours of community service.

In Burns’ appeal, he is asking the Superior Court to find that there was insufficient evidence on all charges to find him guilty.

“In this case, there were no surrounding circumstances that have been held to be sufficient to show criminal recklessness, such as driving at unsafe speed, driving while intoxicated, falling asleep at the wheel, driving in the wrong lane of traffic, reckless or careless driving or failing to yield,” Burns’ lawyer, Al Lindsay, wrote in the appeal. “That is, Mr. Burns’ actions do not evidence a conscious disregard for human life.”

Lindsay’s Superior Court arguments echo his closing statements he made to the jury last summer. He attempted to persuade them that Burns was not to blame for Major’s death and questioned why authorities didn’t investigate his employer since the company ultimately made the choice to assign Burns the Sterling truck and had tasked an unqualified mechanic to fix it two years before the accident.

“He’s the least responsible person in this case,” Lindsay said to the jury in his closing arguments.

Lindsay concludes in his appeal that all charges are faulty. But in Assistant District Attorney Amanda Scarpo’s response, she writes that the trial provided more than enough evidence to find Burns guilty on all counts.

“Because (Burns) was in a hurry due to his already significant loss of time that day, (he) chose to rest on assumption, which resulted in a severe case of inattention on his part; and, so too, a conscious disregarding the substantial and unjustifiable risk of death or serious bodily injury he was placing on both himself and the driving public.”

Scarpo concludes a few paragraphs later that there was “sufficient evidence for the jury” to find that Burns “caused the death of Dale Majors.”

Scarpo then compares Burns’ inattention “to driving in the wrong lane of traffic and causing a head-on collision without any discernible reason” since he took no precautions “to prevent an accident.”