A sharply divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided to extend the so-called “Jay Smith rule” to allow two reputed Mafiosos — Raymond “Long John” Martorano and Albert Daidone — to walk free without a retrial for the contract killing of a union boss due to extensive prosecutorial misconduct by former Assistant District Attorney Barbara L. Christie.
“The prosecutorial misconduct in the case at bar clearly meets the Smith standard,” Justice Sandra Schultz Newman wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Flaherty and Justices Ralph J. Cappy and Stephen A. Zappala.
