Trial delayed in attempted murder case

With a jury poised to be seated for the trial of a Barnesville man charged with attempted murder, a Schuylkill County judge on Tuesday delayed the case after taking both prosecution and defense lawyers to task for failing to prepare.

The trial will now be scheduled for the next term, in February.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience. This is not supposed to happen,” a furious President Judge William E. Baldwin told jurors.

Jonathan T. Ford’s trial was scheduled to start at 9 a.m.

But defense lawyer James G. Conville asked Baldwin to exclude photographs of the victim’s injuries Assistant District Attorney David J. Rice had just shown him that morning, and a medical report he had just gotten on Monday.

The last-minute submission of the items gave Conville no time to review them or to hire experts to testify about them, he told the judge.

“I’m not going to exclude the evidence,” Baldwin said. “The remedy is continuance so you can prepare.”

After a brief conference with his client outside the courtroom, Conville asked the judge for a delay.

Baldwin scolded Rice for failing to gather the items sooner, and Conville for failing to ask about them sooner.

Rice said he thought police had the medical records, and so didn’t go after them, and that he had only recently found out the victim’s father had taken the photographs.

Baldwin said he has had “continual problems” with Rice not being prepared for trials.

“There had better not be any more surprise evidence in this case, Mr. Rice,” Baldwin said.

He also rebuked Conville, saying the defense lawyer knew Rice would present evidence of the victim’s injuries.

“You can’t play these games,” Baldwin said.

Conville argued that he should not be burdened with making sure prosecutors did their jobs.

Jurors dismissed

Baldwin had the jury brought in at 9:30 a.m., and explained that they would be sent home because neither side was prepared.

“I hate wasting your time,” he said. “But they are not ready for trial.”

The jurors were dismissed, and Ford returned to the county jail across the street from the courthouse.

Witnesses scheduled to testify also went home. They included Jordan M. Stravinsky, 22, who was Ford’s accomplice, according to police. Facing similar charges, she negotiated a plea deal, to be finalized after her testimony.

Stravinsky, who had been released on $1 bail in May after being in jail 180 days without coming to trial, is on house arrest.

State police at Frackville believe Ford, 31, and Stravinsky kidnapped Shaun D. Briggs, 34, from his Union Township home on Sept. 29.

Briggs was forced into a car at gunpoint, then beaten by Ford as Ford drove the car away, with Stravinsky in the back seat.

Stravinsky and Ford forced Briggs to strip, then ordered him into a pond. Ford fired a gun at Briggs as he cowered in the water, according to court documents.

Ford and Stravinsky then drove to a friend’s house, where they burned Briggs’ bloody clothes before going to a strip club, according to testimony.

Briggs testified at a Dec. 1, 2016, preliminary hearing that he needed 18 stitches for numerous cuts on his face and head, had a fractured skull, a tooth knocked out, a fractured nose, a broken finger, and a broken bone in his wrist.