Metro

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks took the stand Wednesday morning during the final evidentiary hearing for the post-conviction appeal of the city man convicted of first-degree murder.

Weeks was the first assistant district attorney during the January 2020 trial of John P. Stiver and aided in his prosecution.

Stiver, who is currently serving a life sentence in SCI Frackville, was found guilty of shooting and killing 58-year-old David Hoover in the parking lot of Bethany Lutheran Church on July 26, 2018. He has maintained from the beginning that he shot Hoover in self-defense.

Wednesday’s proceedings are the third and final in a series of evidentiary hearings to address Stiver’s petition for post-conviction relief. Through defense attorney Robert Donaldson, Stiver has argued that his trial defense counsel, Kristen Anastasi, failed to show the jury a video that would prove his claim.

After calling Weeks to testify, First Assistant District Attorney Nichole Smith played a portion of the video in question.

The beginning of the video shows a white car, driven by Mark Adams with Hoover as the passenger, passing a home in a residential neighborhood. The home’s resident later uploaded the footage from the porch camera to his YouTube channel.

The car is seen turning right and leaving the camera’s field of view. Weeks said after making the turn, Adams pulled into the Bethany Lutheran parking lot.

While the video doesn’t show the shooting, a bang can be heard shortly after the vehicle turns right. Weeks identified the sound as Hoover striking the hood of Stiver’s vehicle with a baseball bat.

Voices can be heard before a second bang, which Weeks identified as Stiver shooting Hoover.

“It did not capture the shooting,” Weeks said, clarifying that the video was mainly relevant for its audio.

In questioning Weeks, Smith said “there’s been discussion of voices on the video” and asked if Weeks could hear any “discernable” voices.

Weeks said he had listened to the video more than a dozen times.

“I certainly hear human voices,” Weeks said, before adding that he could not tell what was being said.

When asked by Smith why the video hadn’t been shown during trial, Weeks said the prosecution couldn’t reach an agreement with Anastasi in regards to its authenticity.

In order for the video to be presented to the jury, Weeks explained they would either need to have the defense sign a stipulation stating the video was authentic or call the resident as a witness to verify it belonged to him. The resident had not given the video to police and Weeks said the prosecution only became aware of it after he uploaded it to YouTube. To preserve it, Weeks took two screen recordings of the video, he said.

“We made it clear (to Anastasi) that we wanted to use it in our case in chief but did not want to call (the resident) to testify,” Weeks said.

Weeks said they were “concerned (the resident) would intentionally cause a mistrial” if called to the stand due to comments he had previously made on Facebook.

Smith’s questioning also addressed the use of a computer generated animation — referred to as a CGA — during Stiver’s trial.

The CGA used was created by Jeremy Gibson of State College, who owns Digital Trace Forensics. Weeks said Gibson had gone to the scene to make measurements for the CGA’s layout and referenced police reports and witness accounts to create the animation.

As the resident’s video was discovered after the CGA was created, Weeks said Gibson had not been able to reference it but the video was “completely consistent” with what Gibson created.

Senior Judge Timothy M. Sullivan, who presided over both Stiver’s trial and county appeals, initially excluded the CGA as Stiver lacked the resources to obtain an expert to create a CGA in his defense, Weeks said. After filing a motion to reconsider, in which the prosecution offered Gibson’s services to Anastasi, Sullivan changed his ruling.

Weeks clarified that the prosecution never saw Anastasi’s CGA, saying it was “deliberately kept from us.”

Anastasi ultimately decided against using the CGA at trial.

On cross-examination, Donaldson asked Weeks about videos obtained from other cameras in the neighborhood. Weeks said Altoona police were given other videos but the resident’s was the “outlier” as it had audio and captured Adams’ car.

“At that time, there was no surveillance of the incident,” Weeks said.

Weeks also confirmed to Donaldson that the prosecution had provided all evidence to Anastasi before Stiver’s trial.

Anastasi, who testified at the previous evidentiary hearing, was briefly recalled to the stand and said she did remember the prosecution’s offer to use Gibson’s services. She confirmed that the defense did receive their own CGA after working with Gibson but did not use it.

Following the conclusion of testimony, Sullivan ordered transcripts of the hearings be prepared and distributed to all parties. He said upon their receipt of the transcripts, the defense and prosecution would have 60 days to submit their memoranda of law.

After receiving these items, Sullivan said he would issue his opinion on the matter within 30 days.

In addition to first-degree murder, Stiver was found guilty of felony aggravated assault, possession with intent to deliver and criminal conspiracy, as well as several misdemeanors.

The dispute between Stiver and Hoover began over money and drugs, with the pair meeting in the church parking lot after a chase through the city, according to court documents and trial testimony.

The state Supreme Court previously denied Stiver a hearing for further appeal without comment in April 2022. He had the option of taking his case to the U.S. Supreme Court or filing a post-conviction appeal in state court.

In his 95-page opinion upholding the jury’s first-degree murder finding, Sullivan wrote, “We found that the evidence was more than sufficient to support a first-degree murder conviction.”

Superior Court Judges Alice B. Dubow, Megan King and Correale F. Stevens then adopted Sullivan’s opinion.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor-Musselman is at 814-946-7458.