Death penalty phase to begin in double murder case

A Philadelphia jury will begin hearing evidence this morning to decide if Mustafa Ali - found guilty Wednesday of two counts of first-degree murder in the 2007 slayings of two Loomis armed van guards - should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Barry will begin presenting evidence of "aggravating factors" that warrant a death sentence, including the seven-year federal prison term Ali served in the 1990s for a half-dozen bank robberies.

But Ali's defense team is not expected to begin its case until Monday, making it unlikely the 12-member Common Pleas Court jury will begin deliberations before Tuesday. The trial began Feb. 1 after almost three weeks of jury selection.

Ali's lawyers will present evidence of "mitigating factors" they will argue should tip the balance toward a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Such mitigating evidence may involve Ali's family life as well as his career after he got out of prison in January 1999. After changing his name from Shawn Steele, the former Drexel engineering student started his own janitorial service and worked as an electronics technician for a Trenton company.

The jury of seven women and five men spent just three hours before finding Ali, 39, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the Oct. 4, 2007 killings of William Widmaier, 65, of Fairless Hills and Joseph Alullo, 54, of Levittown.

The jury acquitted Ali of the attempted murder of Loomis driver Joseph Walczak, 72, of Frankford. Walczak was injured by glass when a bullet hit the armored van's window as the two guards serviced an outdoor ATM at a Wachovia Bank branch at Roosevelt Mall in the Northeast.

Defense attorneys argued that the window shot was fired by Alullo as he spotted Ali, gun drawn, approaching the ATM. They argued that Ali panicked at the shot purportedly fired by Alullo and emptied his 8-shot 9mm semiautomatic pistol at Alullo and Widmaier.

Barry argued that ballistics evidence proved the window shot came from Ali's gun, not the two shots fired by Alullo. Regardless, Barry said, the ATM security video proved he was guilty of first-degree murder because it shows Ali stride toward the crew and immediately begin firing.