http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/15452762.htm
Posted on Wed, Sep. 06, 2006
Lawyer: Man accused of killing 3 outside club was off medication
GENARO C. ARMAS
Associated Press
HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. - A man accused of fatally shooting three people outside a social club last year had stopped taking medication for a panic disorder at the time and did not intend to kill them, his attorney said Wednesday.
Miguel Padilla, 27, of Gallitzin, faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in the Aug. 28, 2005, shootings outside the United Veterans Association Club in Altoona.
Defense attorney Don Speice acknowledged during opening arguments of the trial that his client fired the shots, but said he clearly did not have the intent to kill.
"The evidence clearly shows that Mr. Padilla fired the gun eight times," Speice said. "Does it establish murder? Yes. Does it establish murder in the first-degree? No."
But Blair County prosecutors argued that Padilla displayed "a will to kill" when he shot the three men after Padilla's friend got into an argument with doorman Fred Rickabaugh.
Jackie Bernard, an assistant prosecutor, said Padilla went to his friend's car for a gun, walked back and shot Rickabaugh and club owner Alfred Mignogna. A patron outside, Steven Heiss, was also shot and killed.
"The defendant was a coward. As quickly as he shot those three men is as quickly as he fled from the scene," Bernard said.
Speice told the jury that Padilla had been off his medication the evening of the shooting. He also said Padilla may have been influenced by the suicide of a close friend three days earlier.
After the shootings, prosecutors said, Padilla ran to his friend's house and called police. Authorities found the gun and a briefcase with Padilla's identification in a wooded area two blocks from the house.
Padilla is a Mexican citizen who has been in the United States illegally since age 9. The judge has ordered that information kept from the jury, claiming it could be prejudicial.
The emotionally charged case has generated so much publicity in Blair County that the jury hearing the case was selected from Cumberland County and bused to Hollidaysburg.