In Indiana County Court today, Senior Judge William Martin will conduct hearings on motions filed by two defendants over whose trials he presided when he was president judge last year.
Martin will hear a motion by 44-year-old Dwight Bowen, who was found guilty in September of third degree murder in the death of his SCI Pine Grove cellmate, Luis Santiago, on January 1st of 2019.
Already serving life in prison for the firebombing deaths of two young children in Philadelphia in 2001, Bowen was sentenced in December to an additional 20 to 40 years in prison.
Bowen is seeking to represent himself in his appeal of his conviction. He is currently in SCI Greene County.
Judge Martin will also hear a post-sentence motion by Charles Cook, who pleaded no contest in October to five counts of criminal use of a communications device.
The crimes occurred while he was incarcerated in the Indiana County Jail, when he used the jail’s phones to arrange drug deliveries to his girlfriend. He was in the jail awaiting trial for the shooting death of Myrtle McGill of Indiana in 1991, a trial in which he was acquitted of all charges.
In December, Cook filed a motion to modify his sentence after he was ordered to serve between six and fourteen years in prison. He is serving his time at SCI Camp Hill.
