Steven G. Slutzker in No. 03-4219 v. Philip Johnson Gerald J. Pappert Stephen A. Zappala, Jr., District Attorney, Allegheny County, Pa, in No. 03-4046

OPINION OF THE COURT

BECKER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from an order of the District Court granting habeas corpus relief to Steven G. Slutzker from a twelve-year-old conviction in a nearly thirty-year-old murder case. When John Mudd Sr. was murdered in his home in late 1975, suspicion soon focused. on Slutzker, who had been having an affair with Mudd’s wife, and who had attempted to hire a hit man to kill him. At the time, prosecutors could not assemble enough evidence to incriminate Slutzker, and no one was indicted for the crime. Fifteen years later,…