Attorneys for man who killed 3 Pittsburgh officers in 2009 ask for funding to find, interview jurors

PITTSBURGH — Attorneys for the man convicted of shooting and killing three Pittsburgh police officers in 2009 were back in court on Monday to ask a judge to grant them funding to find the jurors who were assigned to the case and interview them.

Richard Poplawski shot and killed officers Eric Kelly, Stephen Mahle and Paul Sciullo. He was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to death.

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His attorneys want to ask the jurors who found him guilty if they were unfairly pressured to find a guilty verdict.

“What I think they’re sort of referencing is was there anything outside of the judge’s instructions that influenced this jury, and if so, how, when and why,” legal analyst Phil DiLucente said.

The judge granted the defense team a small fraction of the funding they asked for.

“I think they’re really zealously defending their client but that does not mean that every dollar requested is always going to be granted,” DiLucente said.

Poplawski’s defense attorneys want to ask the jurors if their decision was influenced by the heavy police presence in and around the courthouse during the trial and if there were any other outside factors that played a role in their verdict.

The jury was selected from Dauphin County because of the local publicity surrounding the case.

“We need to know every single fact if and whether this Dauphin County jury brought in here to Pittsburgh, if they were influenced, and if they were influenced, why were they influenced?” DiLucente said.

Poplawski is in the post-conviction appeal stage of his case.

“Ultimately it might seem at first that they’re just trying to get rid of the death penalty to negotiate life, but perhaps, they’re also requesting if they find that there are issues, a new complete trial,” DiLucente said.

Poplawski was watching the trial from prison via Zoom. He remained silent the entire time.

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