Man convicted of murder in 2015 petitions to appeal to the state Supreme Court

Jul. 11—HARRISBURG, Pa. — A former McConnellsburg man sentenced in connection with a fatal shooting at Johnstown's Solomon Homes in 2015 is seeking to appeal his case to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

A Petition for Allowance of Appeal has been filed to the court on behalf of Stanley Leo Spriggs.

Spriggs, 66, was one of three men convicted in connection with the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Thomas Peebles at Building 5 of Solomon Homes on July 18, 2015.

Spriggs and Perry Henderson, 51, were found guilty of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, robbery and related conspiracy charges in February 2017. They were later sentenced to life in state prison.

A third co-defendant, Kenneth Odell Simmons, 27, who entered a guilty plea to third-degree murder in 2016, testified at the trial and was sentenced to 11 to 25 years in state prison.

Spriggs' petition to appeal to the court comes after the Superior Court denied his motion for relief filed under the Post Conviction Relief Act, which allows individuals who have pleaded guilty or been found guilty of a crime to argue that a new trial or other relief may be warranted.

The Superior Court upheld the position of a Cambria County judge.

Spriggs' petition argued that the PCRA court had made a mistake in concluding that trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to the trial court's instructions regarding second-degree murder.

In an opinion issued by the Superior Court, the court agrees with the commonwealth that the PCRA court improperly treated Spriggs's application for emergency relief as timely filed.

The Superior Court affirmed the Cambria court decision that dismissed Spriggs' PCRA petition based that it was untimely.

Spriggs filed a petition to appeal to the Supreme Court two previous times on two other appeals in the case, both of which were denied.

He is serving his sentence at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview.