4/09/04 -By Guy Stearling, Star-Ledger

Avoiding a possible death sentence, a Newark man pleaded guilty yesterday to murdering an Ohio truck driver and leaving his body in the brush along Rt. 78.

Norman James will spend the next three decades in prison. James, 33, entered his plea at his death penalty trial in the 2001 slaying of trucker James Burt of McDonald, OH, was just days from getting underway in Superior Court in Newark.

Jury selection began in January and more than 50 potential jurors have been qualified to hear the case. Final jury selection and opening arguments were scheduled for Monday.

Instead, as part of a plea bargain, months in the making, James will be sentenced to 30 years behind bars when he returns next week to the courtroom of Judge Peter Vazquez.

The jury will not be discharged until sentencing in the event a problem arises with the plea in what Gary Bogdanski, the Essex County assistant prosecutor handling the case, termed a "safety mechanism."

In addition to Burt’s murder, James had four other charges – including the assault of a Pennsylvania state trooper in the hours before Burt was killed, Attempted Murder, a jailhouse assault and Weapons Possession – rolled into his plea bargain and sentence. Another five charges will be dismissed.

After yesterday’s court hearing and sudden ending, Essex County prosecutors and defense lawyers said they were pleased with the outcome. Burt’s wife and two daughters supported the plea as well, Bogdanski said.

"This was done with the consent of the family" he added.

Reached at home yesterday, Burt’s widow, Carole, said she was advised to have no comment until after sentencing but that she and numerous family members had been contacted about the plea. She’s been waiting to scatter her husband’s cremated remains at his favorite beach in the Caribbean until the case was over.

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow, who sat in the courtroom for the plea, insisted February’s failure to gain the death penalty against a reputed Blood’s member accused of orchestrating the killing of a Marine Corps reservist played no role in the decision to make a deal with James.

The defendant was found guilty only of reckless manslaughter in that case, a verdict that stunned the prosecutor’s office.

"Absolutely not," Dow replied, when asked if the earlier case may have convinced her that a plea with James was wise. "We look at our cases individually and evaluate each one on all the relevant facts."

But one of the two lawyers representing James wasn’t so certain.

"The prosecutor’s office was very comfortable going to trial, but the rarity of capital punishment verdicts in Essex County plays into it," attorney Paul Feinberg said of the plea

Bogdanski got the last death penalty conviction in Essex County in 1993. He asked to prosecute James because his father was a truck driver.

Ray Beam, James’ other defense lawyer, said he felt his client had gotten a good deal and added that the prosecutor’s office had approached the defense with the offer.

But Bogdanski said there would have been no agreement without James pleading guilty to felony murder in the death of Burt, a 56-year-old Vietnam veteran and onetime auxiliary policeman.

Before James entered his plea, Bogdanski recited much of the prosecution’s evidence against him, none of which the defense contested. For the first time, it was disclosed that authorities had a witness who was gong to testify that James confessed the killing to her in the hours after the shooting.

When James spoke, he never actually said he shot Burt; only that he entered the plea because he was guilty. He acknowledged reading all of the investigative material the defense had been provided by prosecutors and that he’d had extensive conversations about a plea with his lawyers and two forensic social workers they’d retained.

A lifelong trucker, Burt was found with two .40 caliber slugs in his head the morning of May 23, 2001. His body, pitched face-first into the thick brush of a highway embankment along Route 78 in Newark, lay undiscovered for nearly 12 hours.

Authorities have said Burt was kidnapped in Poconos by James and a 14-year-old accomplice the previous night after he tried to help what he believed was a police officer in distress, only to find James pointing a gun at him and ordering his back into his truck to drive to Newark.

Burt stopped his truck after seeing the patrol car crash into a highway on-ramp guardrail; not knowing someone other than a law enforcement agent was behind the wheel. The teenager, who’s been identified only by the initials R.M.," pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against James.

The trooper identified James as well and was ready to take the stand, Bogdanski told the court. There was also fingerprint evidence linking James to the stolen motorcycle, the prosecutor said.

In March 2002, the teen testified that before he was shot, Burt was forced to his knees and begged James: "Please don’t kill me." John Delliltalia, the boy’s attorney, said the youth, now 17, was prepared to stick with his account at trial. He faces a sentence of five to 10 years.

Essex County lawman have said James killed Burt so he couldn’t be identified in the assault on the trooper, kidnapping and truck jacking the vehicle. After a massive manhunt, James surrendered to police in upstate New York, 16 days after the shooting, saying he was tired of "living like a cockroach." He has been in jail ever since.

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