The attorney for Ronald Weiss yesterday filed a “motion for a determination of frivolousness and reconsideration,” in effect asking Judge Thomas Bianco to reconsider his ruling that Weiss may be re-tried for the murder of Barbara Bruzda in October of 1978.
Jury selection is scheduled for March 21st for Weiss, who was convicted in 1997 for killing the 16-year-old Tunnelton girl. In 2018, federal judge Mark Hornack reversed the conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct by then-Deputy State Attorney General John Scott Robinette and a state trooper, who claimed two inmates who testified against Weiss were not promised special treatment, when they clearly were. Hornack warned that a retrial could be barred because of double jeopardy, but Bianco eventually ruled that the prosecution’s misconduct and Weiss’s guilt or innocence were two separate issues. His ruling was upheld in State Superior Court. After Hornack ordered that Weiss be released from prison, he was immediately re-arrested and the charges were re-filed.
Weiss was 30 years old at the time of the murder. He and Bruzda had been playing pool at her family’s bar in Tunnelton on the night she disappeared. Her body was found five months later buried under some leaves in a wooded area. Weiss avoided prosecution for almost 20 years until a state law barring spouses from testifying against each other changed and allowed his common law wife to appear as a witness for the prosecution.
