LOCKPORT, N.Y. — Some of the criminal justice reforms pushed by NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and included in the state budget passed by legislators earlier this week may come into play in an upcoming Niagara County Court murder trial.
Joseph Belstadt, 43, was charged last April in connection with the murder of a high school acquaintance – 17-year-old Mandy Steingasser in 1993, when both attended school in North Tonawanda.
Several months after she disappeared, her body was found at Bond Lake Park.
While DNA evidence was gathered, testing was rather crude by today's standards….and what it initially showed wasn't conclusive enough for prosecutors to bring charges against Belstadt.
But after prosecutors re-opened the case in 2017- and had tests conducted by more modern means, he was charged last April.
While the elimination of cash bail for many crimes got most of the headlines surrounding the judicial reform package approved by lawmakers, there wasn’t a lot of reporting about another reform; regarding the overhaul of discovery laws.
That reform was the focus of much of the argument waged by lawyers for Belstadt during a pre-trial hearing on Friday.
New laws will require prosecutors to turn over evidence to be used against a defendant in the earliest stages of the case.
Belstadt's lawyers cited this when asking a judge to compel the District Attorney to share raw data of DNA evidence, which is central to the people's case.
They want it because they say all they have now is conclusions of reports prepared by prosecutors after they had the evidence analyzed…in a way defense lawyers suggest could have been manipulated to point to their client.
And they want it now so that their own experts may conduct their own analysis well before Belstadt's trial which is currently scheduled for September.