August 7 trial set in Franklin Regional High School stabbings
GREENSBURG (AP) – A 19-year-old man charged with slashing and stabbing 20 fellow students and a security guard at Pittsburgh-area high school nearly three years ago is set for trial Aug. 7.
Westmoreland County Judge Christopher Feliciani issued the trial date Tuesday.
The same judge last month rejected a defense request to let Alex Hribal plead guilty but mentally ill to the attempted homicide and aggravated assault charges he faces for the April 2014 attack at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville.
Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey acknowledges Hribal committed the attacks, but has argued he was psychotic at the time. Feliciani says Hribal may have been mentally ill, but that didn’t render him incapable of knowing what he did was wrong – which is the legal definition of insanity in Pennsylvania.