Gerholt

A Pennsylvania Superior Court ruling will allow a Bedford County judge to hear a post-conviction appeal from a man serving a life sentence for the 2008 murder of his wife.

John Lewis Gerholt, 52, an inmate in the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Montgomery County, filed a post-conviction appeal 18 months ago contending his attorneys erred when they convinced him to enter a no-contest plea to the murder of his 24-year-old wife, Karen.

The incident occurred on Nov. 9, 2008, and Gerholt entered his plea in August 2012.

In 2015, the Superior Court denied Gerholt’s petition filed under the Post Conviction Relief Act.

The appeals court rejected his complaints that his attorneys had given him bad advice when urging him to enter a plea to first-degree murder.

Gerholt on Dec. 28, 2021, filed a new post-conviction petition in Bedford County and in May 2022 filed a supplemental legal brief.

The Superior Court in an opinion issued Tuesday states Gerholt’s new petition “appeared to raise issues challenging the adequacy of (his) 2012 plea agreement, and alleging the ineffectiveness of his prior attorneys for failing to raise this issue.”

However, on June 3, 2022, Bedford County Judge Thomas S. Ling temporarily set Gerholt’s new petition aside, noting that Gerholt already had an appeal regarding another issue — seeking return of property — before the Commonwealth Court.

Ling ruled that as a judge, he was not permitted to hear a second petition while another petition was pending before a state appeals court involving the same case.

Case law from a 2019 Superior Court decision “makes clear that a trial court judge (like Ling) has no jurisdiction to consider a new post-conviction petition while an appeal involving the same case is still pending,” it was explained in Tuesday’s decision.

Gerholt, acting as his own attorney, appealed the Bedford judge’s decision involving his new petition to the Superior Court.

“After review, we agree with (Gerholt),” according to Tuesday’s ruling by a Superior Court panel that included Judges Jack A. Panella, John T. Bender and Dan Pelligrini.

The judges concluded that the issue in the Commonwealth Court involved an “ancillary property dispute,” which was separate from Gerholt’s apparent challenge to his underlying no-contest plea.

The panel stated that the Bedford judge has jurisdiction to hear Gerholt’s new petition, and it vacated the order setting aside the petition until a decision is made by the Commonwealth Court involving a return-of-property request. Gerholt’s petition was remanded to Bedford County for further action.

Gerholt in November 2008 was charged with murdering his wife, who was coming out of a McDonald’s restaurant in Snake Spring Township, where she worked.

He had recently purchased a shotgun and spent time in the Walmart parking lot near the restaurant sawing off a portion of the barrel.

He then laid in wait for her to come out of the restaurant.

Seeing him, she ran.

Gerholt shot at her. After she was down, he reloaded the weapon and shot her again.

The couple had three children.

He contended in 2014 that his lawyers erred when they convinced him to plead no-contest to first-degree murder.

According to the Superior Court opinion issued on Sept. 30, 2015, Gerolt reported that “he couldn’t think straight” and that he was “an emotional wreck,” prior to his guilty plea.

However, the appeals court reported that during his plea colloquy he understood what he was agreeing to, including that a life sentence meant “without parole.”

“Do you understand that Mr. Gerholt?,” the sentencing judge asked him.

He replied,”Yes.”

Gerholt initially faced the death penalty for his wife’s murder, but that was withdrawn upon his agreement to serve a life sentence.

The Superior Court in its 2015 ruling stated he failed to prove his underlying claim has arguable merit.

The court at that time indicated that Gerholt had hoped to have the charge reduced to third-degree murder, but “as the potentiality of the death penalty morphed into reality during jury selection, appellant’s focus shifted,” it stated in its 2015 opinion.