Attorneys for the defense in the murder trial of Christopher Porco have filed a total of 12 motions on behalf of their client, many involving information they believe prosecutors obtained from a six-and-a-half-hour videotaped interrogation of Porco by the Bethlehem Police Department that Judge Jeffrey Berry has previously ruled inadmissible.
`When you threw out the statement, judge, it didn’t bother them at all,` Kindlon said. `They have changed nothing. We find example after example, your honor, that (the prosecution’s) case is derived and intertwined with the unlawful interrogation of Christopher Porco,`
Detectives from Bethlehem police interrogated Porco for several hours the night after the attacks occurred inside the squad room of the department between the hours of 8:30 p.m. and 4 a.m.
Kindlon asked Berry to shut down the trial and hold a hearing similar to a suppression hearing.
`Find out what the basis is for each and every witness they offer,` Kindlon said.
Another point of contention is the testimony offered by city of Rochester police officer Michael Cotsworth.
Berry would not allow Kindlon to ask Cotsworth about a sweep of the neighborhood the officer took along Genesee Street where Cotsworth found Christopher Porco’s yellow Jeep Wrangler parked outside his dorm.
A woman named Celestina Brown told the officer she saw a yellow Jeep parked outside her house on the street all weekend long prior to the crime against Joan and Peter Porco during which the couple was attacked with an ax, killing Peter and leaving Joan with severe, lifelong injuries.
Police believe Christopher Porco drove from Rochester to Delmar and back between the hours of 10 p.m. on Nov. 14 and 8:18 a.m. Nov. 15, 2004, and attacked his parents inside their Brockley Drive home.
Berry said allowing Cotsworth to testify about his sweep of the neighborhood would be `classic hearsay.`
Kindlon, however, filed a motion that he believes supports his argument to allow the officers testimony in the trial.
`Our defense is that this was a shoddy, superficial investigation based on the assumption that Christopher Porco is guilty,` Kindlon said.
`My decision stands at this point,` Berry said.
Kindlon also filed motions to suppress other information he believes prosecutors are trying to allow in the trial. It includes the possibility that Porco may have told a relative the day following the crime that he may consider selling the 36 Brockley Drive home his parents lived in.
`What is becoming a persistent problem in this case is any statement made by my client out of court before or after his father’s death is hearsay and not admissible until it is established,` Kindlon argued. `The statement in response to a question that my client would sell his parents’ house or not is much too ambiguous to infer guilt.`
Kindlon said every single statement made by Porco should not be admissible just because he is the defendant.
Another motion filed by attorneys for the defense involves how much gasoline was in Christopher Porco’s Jeep Wrangler the weekend before and after the crime. Prosecutors believe Porco made a sales transaction on his credit card purchasing gas before the crimes occurred but the gas tank only had 4 gallons of fuel left when authorities seized the vehicle the next morning.
`The jury would have to make a number of assumptions and wholesale speculation,` Kindlon said. `The presence of 4.5 gallons of gasoline in the tank of the Jeep proves nothing, and I am filing a motion to preclude any testimony on the amount of gasoline Christopher Porco had in his gas tank.`
The Christopher Porco murder trial was delayed at the end of testimony July 10 and adjourned until Monday, July 17.
Berry halted the trial due to the death of the mother of defense attorney Laurie Shanks. Also on Tuesday, July 11, Kindlon, Shanks’ husband as well as co-counsel for the defense, was admitted to Albany Medical Center for chest pains.
Doctors performed an angioplasty because of a blocked artery they found. The procedure was successful, and the trial will resume this week in Orange County Supreme Court in Goshen.