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By TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER tmorgan@leader.net
Wednesday, January 26, 2000 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE – Nearly 18 years after he murdered a Plymouth Township man,
Tyrone Moore is trying to escape death row by arguing jurors should have been
told he suffered brain damage from his days as a boxer.
Moore’s attorneys are expected to call several psychiatrists and
neurologists at a hearing today to bolster their case seeking to overturn
Moore’s conviction and death sentence for the 1982 murder of Nicholas
Romanchick.
Moore, a Philadelphia native, was convicted in Luzerne County Court of
Common Pleas in 1983 of shooting Romanchick, 31, during a 1982 robbery at the
Forty Fort Animal Hospital in Wyoming. Romanchick had taken his cat to the
clinic and was shot when the animal jumped from his arms.
Moore has filed multiple appeals of his first-degree murder conviction. All
were unsuccessful. He was before Judge Mark Ciavarella on Tuesday for his
latest appeal, a post-conviction relief hearing. The appeal deals with issues
that have not been decided by other appellate courts, said Assistant District
Attorney James McMonagle.
Moore was sentenced to death in 1988 after other appeals were completed.
McMonagle said Tuesday that Moore’s case will not be resolved for many years.
Even if Moore loses the current appeal, he has multiple appeals left at the
state and federal level, McMonagle said.
In the latest appeal, Moore’s attorney, Bill Nolas, say Moore’s prior
attorneys were ineffective. On Tuesday, Nolas questioned Moore’s trial
attorney, Joseph Yeager, about Yeager’s failure to secure a mental health or
neurological evaluation of Moore.
Nolas, an attorney with the Federal Defender of Philadelphia, an anti-death
penalty group, indicated he has evidence suggesting Moore suffered
neurological problems caused by an eight-year stint as a boxer – information
Nolas asserted Yeager should have obtained.
But Ciavarella seemed unimpressed by the argument.
“Tell me, do all boxers, as a result of boxing, have neurological
problems?” Ciavarella asked Nolas. “Just because someone boxes, counsel
should obtain a mental health exam?”
Nolas argued the alleged boxing injury, combined with information on prior
mental health evaluations of Moore, should have prompted Yeager to seek a new
evaluation.
Yeager testified Moore never indicated he had mental or neurological
problems. Yeager said he and his co-counsel, Patrick Flannery, repeatedly
asked Moore for information that would help his case, but getting him to
cooperate was “like pulling teeth.”
Nolas also questioned if Yeager should have stressed more to the jury that
Moore intended only to rob the animal clinic, and the shooting was an impulse
act. Nolas implied that information might have helped persuade jurors not to
impose the death penalty.
But Yeager said he was hampered by Moore’s insistence on maintaining he did
not take part in the robbery and murder.
“It was Tyrone’s position that he was not there and he was not the
shooter. To argue he shot impulsively was not consistent with his position,”
Yeager said.
Testimony is scheduled to resume this morning at 9:15. The hearing is
expected to last until at least Thursday.
Call Morgan-Besecker at 829-7179.