Allegheny County’s top judge has clamped down on a controversial legal maneuver that freed a violent crime defendant from jail, enabling him, authorities say, to walk away from an unsecured facility and kill a woman several months later.
A judge in the court’s criminal division repeatedly denied bail for Isreal Moseby, who was in jail after being charged with stabbing someone. But a defense lawyer successfully won Moseby’s release by taking the matter up with a judge in a different division – one that deals with civil matters.
Police said Moseby went on to kill Samantha Howells, 52, of the North Side in Pittsburgh’s Crafton Heights neighborhood…