SMETHPORT – James McMahon, convicted of first-degree murder in
the March 8, 2001, stabbing death of Link Dowell, was back in
McKean County Court Tuesday.

McMahon, who is serving a life sentence in state prison, is now
contending through his attorney Greg Henry that the attorney who
represented him at his November 2001 trial was ineffective in that
he did not raise the issue of intoxication as a partial
defense.

Under Pennsylvania law, a crime that might be first-degree
murder can be deemed third-degree if it can be shown that the
perpetrator was so intoxicated at the time of his action that he
was unable to specifically form the intent to kill.

At Tuesday’s proceeding, Dennis Luttenauer, the attorney who
represented McMahon at the trial, testified several times that
McMahon himself had said that he was not so drunk that he did not
know what he was doing and that he stabbed Dowell because Dowell
had unexpectedly assaulted him in the barroom of the Bradford
Hotel.

“He told me it wasn’t the alcohol … that he had a pretty good
buzz, but he was not really drunk,” Luttenauer said under Henry’s
questioning.

The defense attorney went on to say that it was his
understanding of the law that for voluntary intoxication to be a
defense, the person’s faculties had to be “totally overwhelmed,”
adding that McMahon had said before the trial he was not that
drunk, and that it was solely the assault that precipitated the
stabbing.

The morning was spent in questioning of Sherry DelCamp, who
testified that McMahon had picked her up about 9 or 9:30 on the
morning of the killing and had taken her to his home, where they
and others had drunk beer and Mad Dog until about 1 p.m.

Henry introduced two 750 milliliter bottles of the fruity drink,
which is labeled “13 percent alcohol.”

DelCamp said that all four people there had tasted the Mad Dog,
but that McMahon had drunk most of it, then driving them to the
Bradford Hotel, where he drank rum and coke, “sucking them down
like water” until about 5:30, when he had driven her to her
mothers’ to pick up her children and take them to her grandparents’
because her mother had had enough of them.

DelCamp said that McMahon drove too fast and she had scolded
him. They then went to the Riddle House, where McMahon drank more,
and then back to the Bradford Hotel where the fight and subsequent
stabbing occurred.

She admitted that she was intoxicated, and said that the whole
group were “staggering” and that McMahon had fallen over some
barstools on his way to the restroom.

District Attorney John Pavlock questioned her intensively on why
she had never mentioned at the trial that McMahon was intoxicated,
although she had said that of one other person in the party.

He also noted several other inconsistencies between her present
story and what she said at the trial, but she answered that she “…
is not as nervous now” as she was then.

Pavlock also pointed out that, although she now says McMahon was
drunk, she let her children ride in a car he was driving that
day.

DelCamp several times showed impatience with Pavlock’s
questions, and under redirect questioning by Henry, said she never
said anything about McMahon’s alleged intoxication because no one
had asked her.

With Luttenauer on the stand, Henry pressed him as to why he had
not pursued the intoxication defense, even though he had mentioned
in a letter to a private investigator that the issue might be
important.

While Luttenauer repeated that McMahon insisted he was not truly
drunk, Henry hammered at Luttenauer that he had other information
on how much McMahon had drunk and that he should have realized
McMahon was in denial and not admitting how much he had consumed or
how drunk he was.

When Judge John Cleland broke in with “Are you trying to impeach
your own client?” Henry replied quickly, “You betcha!”

Luttenauer maintained that the only things that he had heard
significantly different from what McMahon had told him is “what I
heard from DelCamp this morning.”

He told Henry that his not using the intoxication defense had
not been a strategy, but that he come because he had no evidence
that McMahon was severely intoxicated.

The hearing broke off abruptly at the request of the district
attorney, and will be resumed at an unspecified date.