MEADVILLE — Jury deliberations are to resume this morning in Crawford County Court of Common Pleas in the homicide trial of Patricia Oliver.

The seven-woman, five-man jury was sent home for the night by Judge John Spataro around 5 p.m. Thursday after a little more than four hours of deliberation.

Oliver, 54, is on trial in county court on criminal homicide charges for the Oct. 5, 2010, shotgun slaying of her husband, Anthony Oliver, 63, at the couple’s Hayfield Township home.

Police allege Mrs. Oliver shot her husband once in the chest with a single-barrel 12-gauge shotgun just before 10 a.m. that day following a domestic argument about bills.

The case was turned over to the jury at 12:35 p.m. Thursday to start its deliberations after closing arguments by the defense and prosecution, and instructions on the law by Judge Spataro.

The jury is to decide if the shooting by Mrs. Oliver was in self-defense or if she is guilty of criminal homicide and, if so, to what degree.

Spataro told the jury if Mrs. Oliver is guilty of criminal homicide it must be either first-degree murder, third-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter; or if not guilty on any of those degrees, the shooting was justified.

The judge said a second-degree murder conviction would not apply in the Oliver case. Second-degree murder is when a death results from the commission of a felony.

Under Pennsylvania law, first-degree murder is an intentional killing that is willful, deliberate and premeditated. The penalties for first-degree murder are life in prison or the death penalty; however, the Oliver case is not a death penalty case.

Third-degree murder is a killing that involves gross recklessness by a person rather than an intentional malicious act. The maximum sentence is 40 years in jail.

Voluntary manslaughter is an unjustified killing resulting from the heat of passion, extreme provocation, or a mistake — even an unreasonable mistake — that legal justification was present. It carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.



Closing arguments

In closing arguments Thursday, Jeff Misko, an assistant public defender who was one of Mrs. Oliver’s defense lawyers, argued Mrs. Oliver acted purely out of self-defense.

“You could hear the fear in her voice,” Misko said, referring to Mrs. Oliver’s call to the Crawford County 911 Center immediately after the shooting. The call was played Wednesday for the jury as part of Mrs. Oliver’s defense. “She said, ‘He was coming at me.’ ”

Testifying in her own defense Wednesday, Mrs. Oliver said she was afraid of her husband, who was said by his wife to be enraged when he came into the couple’s bedroom calling her derogatory names after he became angry while doing bills in the kitchen. She admitted to picking up a shotgun from underneath the couple’s bed and waving it at her husband when he was in the bedroom.

Misko also pointed out in his closing argument Thursday that money wasn’t a motive as Mrs. Oliver was financially better off with her husband alive since his monthly income was more than three times hers.

“There’s no question the aggressor was Tony (Mr. Oliver), and Patty’s response was self-defense,” Misko said.

However, Doug Ferguson, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case, said Mrs. Oliver actually was the aggressor.

In his closing argument, Ferguson reminded the jury that Mrs. Oliver’s “fear” of her husband did not agree with other statements she made; she had referred to her husband as her best friend during her interview with police investigators following the shooting.

Ferguson said trial testimony about physical evidence showed Mr. Oliver was standing straight up in the doorway of the bedroom and he was unarmed when he was shot by Mrs. Oliver who was standing on the other side of the bed away from her husband.

There was no evidence of Mr. Oliver going forward toward Mrs. Oliver, as there was no blood on the bed, but there was blood beneath Mr. Oliver where he landed on the bedroom floor, and blood on one wall past the bedroom doorway, Ferguson said.

“Who upped the ante?,” Ferguson asked. “Who brought a gun to the argument? Who was the aggressor?”

Ferguson said though Mrs. Oliver may have been angry about being called derogatory names, “Anger does not allow you to kill another human being.”

Jury deliberations in the case are to resume at 9 a.m. today at the courthouse in Meadville.



Keith Gushard can be reached at 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.