Shoot foe charges affirmed

October 23, 1993

The Republican (Pottsville, PA)

By Peter Bortner

Steven O. Hindi received a fair trial when he was convicted of kicking in a car windshield during the 1990 Fred Coleman Memorial Pigeon Shoot in Hegins, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania has ruled.

The panel upheld the Sept. 4, 1991 conviction of Hindi, 39, of 6 Willow Springs, Plano, Ill., one of the protesters at the annual Labor Day pigeon shoot.

A Schuylkill County jury convicted Hindi of criminal mischief. Judge William E. Baldwin found him guilty of disorderly conduct – a summary charge on which a judge alone makes a ruling. The Superior Court upheld both convictions in an opinion filed Wednesday.

On Friday, Hindi said he was not surprised to hear the Superior Court had affirmed his conviction, but still criticized the county court.

“We understood the Superior Court would be very hesitant to overrule the case. They weren’t there to hear the lies of the prosecution witnesses. The court case was a sham. The whole thing is just an outrage.” Said Hindi.

Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline L. Russell, who successfully prosecuted Hindi, said, “I think this was a long-awaited, correct result.”

Hindi was the only one of the 23 protesters and four other people arrested at the 1990 shoot whose case went to trial in the county court. State police charged him with jumping onto the hood of a car driven by Michael A. Stewart, Annville, and kicking in the windshield Sept. 3, 1990 at the shoot.

The court’s 13-page opinion, authored by Judge Phyllis W. Beck, dealt primarily with whether Baldwin correctly allowed certain videotapes into evidence while excluding others. Beck wrote that Baldwin was correct in allowing both the prosecution’s and Hindi’s tape into evidence and also correctly refused to allow Hindi to show only a part of his tape in slow motion.

With respect to the other points raised by Hindi, the court ruled:

Baldwin correctly allowed the prosecution’s videotape into evidence because Stewart viewed it and testified it accurately and fairly showed what happened in the incident.

Baldwin correctly ruled on Hindi’s disorderly conduct immediately, because holding a separate trial for that charge would have amounted to unconstitutional double jeopardy by trying Hindi twice for the same crime.

Baldwin correctly allowed evidence on the prosecution’s video relevant to the disorderly conduct charge to be seen by the jury, because it was part of the same incident and contradicted Hindi’s claim that he feared for his life. The videotape showed Hindi jumped off the hood of the car, taunted Stewart, assumed a karate position, and kicked, according to the opinion.

In addition to Beck, Judges James R. Cavanaugh and Justin M. Johnson were on the panel deciding Hindi’s case.