SMETHPORT – A hearing has been scheduled for January to
determine if convicted murderer James McMahon should be granted a
new trial for the 2001 stabbing death of Link Dowell III.

In an order dated Nov. 28, McKean County President Judge John
Cleland set an evidentiary hearing in the case for 9 a.m. Jan. 27.
One hour is allotted for the hearing “unless additional time is
promptly requested,” the order reads.

McMahon, 30, formerly of Bradford, was convicted of first-degree
murder for taking the life of Dowell in a bar fight at the Hotel
Bradford on March 8, 2001. On Jan. 10, 2002, McMahon was sentenced
to life in prison.

He has filed three Post Conviction Relief Act petitions,
bringing up several different issues.

In the scheduling order, McMahon’s counsel, Greg Henry of
Bradford, was directed by Cleland to file additional information
prior to the hearing.

Cleland ordered him to file a letter detailing which previously
asserted claims will not be pursued in the January hearing.

Henry’s most recent PCRA petition has argued that McMahon’s
trial counsel, Dennis Luttenauer of Kane, erred in failing to
pursue an intoxication defense in the original case.

In investigative and psychiatric reports prepared for the 2001
trial, references are made to a large amount of alcohol that
McMahon consumed prior to Dowell’s stabbing. Henry also refers to
McMahon’s “irritability and anger” being “demonstrably aggravated
during the course of his alcohol consumption.”

Failing to pursue that defense at trial weakened the defense
that was presented, Henry argued in the petition, which in turn
increased McMahon’s chances for a sentence of life in prison.

Henry asserts that, had the jury been able to consider McMahon’s
intoxicated condition, they may have found him guilty of a lesser
degree of murder. A lesser degree would carry a lesser penalty.

On March 8, 2001, McMahon was in the Hotel Bradford when he and
Dowell fought. McMahon left the bar, went to South Center Street to
find his brother Michael, obtained a knife, drove back to Hotel
Bradford where he entered the bar area with his brother, found
Dowell and fought with him again, stabbing him in the back.

After that, the brothers left the area with two women, driving
to Erie to the McMahons’ mother’s home. The two were arrested in
Erie.