BY MICHAEL R. SISAK
STAFF WRITER
“Anything to keep power away from the (blacks),” Leitzel said, again using the derogatory term, according to Wetzel.
Leitzel, 26, of West Hazleton, pleaded guilty last week to an open count of homicide, but denied any premeditation or intent to end the boy’s life.
Prosecutors claimed Leitzel’s racism and bigotry manifested in his treatment of Xavier and the shaking and strike to the head that led to the boy’s death.
“He had a general hatred for African-Americans,” Assistant District Attorney Jarrett Ferentino told Luzerne County Judge David W. Lupas.
Leitzel’s attorneys, William Ruzzo and Jonathan Blum, asked Lupas to dismiss the most serious potential charge — first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
Lupas, who is sitting in the place of a jury and will decide whether Leitzel intended to murder Xavier, or if the boy’s death was the result of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, denied the motion.
Ruzzo and Blum are scheduled to start presenting their case today, beginning with testimony from Dr. Richard Fischbein, a psychiatrist who examined Leitzel. Ruzzo and Blum and prosecutors agreed to allow another expert, emergency physician Dr. Robert Belfer, submit a report rather than testify.
Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors displayed vivid photographs from the Xavier’s autopsy, his skull fractured, face bruised and spine bloodied, as forensic pathologist Dr. Samuel Lamb testified. Lamb, who performed the autopsy, said Xavier’s injuries were indicative of “abusive head trauma.”
“There has to be an impact to cause (a skull fracture),” Lamb said. “The head struck something or something struck the head.”
Leitzel shook Xavier several times and slammed his head, possibly against a wall or stereo speaker, prosecutors said. The impact caused the boy to fall silent and limp, prosecutors said.
“This is anything but a shaken baby case,” Ferentino said. “Slamming a 3-month-old baby’s head on a hard surface or soft, that’s intent to commit murder.”
Leitzel boasted about the tattoo as two state police officers drove him to a preliminary hearing last April in Hazle Township, four months after the boy, 3-month-old Xavier Simmons, died from blunt force trauma to the head, state police Corporal Corey Wetzel said.
Leitzel told Wetzel he had the swastika — a symbol of hate propagated by Nazis and white supremacists — branded to his body while incarcerated at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, using a sharpened staple as a needle and hair-care products heated to produce a dark dye.
Earlier in the ride, Leitzel noticed a black motorist driving near the intersection of Wilkes-Barre Boulevard and Coal Street, Wetzel said. He scowled at the driver, cursed and invoked a historically pejorative term for blacks.
Ann
