Jul 9, 2022 4 min read

The North Strabane man who has been jailed for more than eight years while awaiting trial in the fatal shooting of his wife is arguing that he should be released because it’s taken too long for prosecutors to bring his homicide case to court.

Scott Edmonds, 58, appeared Friday before President Judge John DiSalle in Washington County Court with the hopes that his case would be dismissed due to Rule 600, which requires a defendant be brought to trial within 365 days of the charges being filed, although there are numerous exceptions in which delays are permitted.

Edmonds is accused of shooting and killing his wife, 49-year-old Louise M. Weis-Edmonds, in the kitchen of their North Strabane condominium March 25, 2014. North Strabane police arrested him the following morning and charged him with homicide and evidence tampering. He has been held without bond at the Washington County jail ever since.

The situation is particularly unusual because it typically does not take nearly a decade for a homicide case to go to trial.

Rose Semple, who is the public defender for Edmonds, argued that there have been so many delays over the past eight years that she found the “run clock” could be up to 417 days.

“The question becomes whether the commonwealth exercised due diligence, and if any of that time is excluded,” Semple said.

But First Assistant District Attorney Leslie Ridge responded reciting the entire “procedural history” timeline of the case and noted the vast majority of delays were due to Edmonds either filing his own motions or requesting new lawyers. She suggested that prosecutors have until Aug. 29, 2023, before their time would run out on the case, and she noted that Edmonds is currently scheduled to go to trial next month.

“This is nothing more than gamesmanship by the defendant,” Ridge said.

Edmonds has regularly sparred with the six lawyers who have represented him – both private attorneys and public defenders – and fired several of them while most recently attempting to represent himself. Ridge noted that Edmonds fired his second attorney, Ralph Karsh, during jury selection in April 2021.

“We were actually picking the jury … and there was a disagreement between Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Karsh,” Ridge said.

The COVID-19 pandemic also caused significant delays in 2020 and 2021 when jury trials were suspended several times, meaning that time is not counted in the calculation. Ridge pointed to documentation in which Edmonds filed numerous motions and even asked for a change of venue that caused continuances by the defense that shouldn’t be calculated into the Rule 600 run time.

“I’ll continue this forever as long as I get a fair trial,” Ridge recited a comment Edmonds told Karsh in December 2019.

Edmonds has also attempted to sue Semple and DiSalle, demanding he be permitted to represent himself. Edmonds was shackled for Friday’s proceeding and appeared to be cordial with Semple as she argued on his behalf. He briefly testified about the financial hardships he faced in the midst of the pandemic that did not allow him to properly investigate his case.

DiSalle said he would review Semple’s motion and Ridge’s response before deciding, although he appeared to be leaning against ruling that there was a Rule 600 violation.

“Obviously, there is a lot to go over. You’ve been living this case, but it’s new to (this) court,” DiSalle said, referring to the fact that it had only recently been assigned to him after going before several other judges. “I’ll go over it carefully.”

He added that he would make a ruling before jury selection in the homicide trial, which is currently scheduled to happen in late August.

“There are a lot of small pieces to review,” DiSalle said. “But there are no parts where the commonwealth is disengaged.”