Ellis

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday denied further review of an appeal by Kashif Omar Ellis, who is serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of an Altoona man.

Ellis, a native of Philadelphia, was charged with entering the Walnut Avenue home of Stephen Lamont Hackney with the intent to rob him.

He ended up shooting Hackney, 37, three times and then fleeing after scooping up money and drugs that were in the home.

Police used a lost cellphone found in the alley behind the home to track the activities of Ellis and two accomplices, Taylor Griffith of Hollidaysburg and Qasim L. Green of Philadelphia, the night of the murder.

City police continued to investigate Hackney’s murder, and in 2017 arrested the trio.

Both Griffth and Green entered guilty pleas and received lesser sentences on charges of third-degree murder.

Ellis was convicted of first-degree murder and related offenses after a five-day jury trial in the courtroom of President Judge Elizabth A. Doyle.

After hearing from a daughter and other family members of the victim, Dolye sentenced Ellis to life without parole for Hackney’s murder and added another 23.5 to 47 years on charges of robbery, criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, discharging a firearm into a structure, burglary and witness intimidation.

During his sentencing hearing, Ellis told the judge he intended to appeal his conviction.

Altoona attorney R. Thomas Forr Jr. filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Superior Court, arguing that Ellis did not receive a fair trial.

Ellis contended the jury saw him shackled; his phone conversations while in prison were improperly intercepted; he was denied the opportunity to challenge the police search of the cellphone found in the alley and the prosecution, led by now-District Attorney Pete Weeks and Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith should have been recused because Griffith’s mother is a county official.

A three-judge panel of the Superior Court last August denied Ellis’ appeal.

Doyle found there was no evidence the jury saw Ellis shackled.

She also denied his complaints about the prison phone calls, noting Pennsylvania law permits interception of inmate phone conversations.

The judge ruled there were no alleged false statements in the search warrant used to gain access to the cellphone, which belonged to Green.

And Doyle found no legal authority to exclude the Blair DA and local judges from presiding over the trial because a relative of a witness worked in the courthouse.

While the Superior Court grants hearings to all appeals filed before it, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has discretion in what it will review, and on Tuesday, it rejected further hearing in the Ellis case.

Ellis has a year to file a post-conviction petition, which may raise other issues that can lead to a new sentence or a new trial.