Tormu Prall allegedly set fire to a Trenton home in 2007, killing his brother John Prall and seriously injuring John Prall's girlfriend
TRENTON -- Citing improperly admitted testimony at his trial, an appeals court threw out the conviction of a Trenton man sentenced to life in prison for setting a house fire that killed his brother in 2007.
When he sentenced Tormu Prall in 2013, Mercer County Judge Andrew Smithson said: "This crime was horrific, outrageous, it shocks the conscious."
Tormu Prall A state appeals court ruled Friday that Smithson's erroneous decisions at the trial forced them to toss out Prall's murder and arson convictions and order a new trial.
The court said the judge, without naming Smithson, was overall fair and had to deal with several difficult issues at the trial, but made errors about testimony from witnesses.
"The combination of those errors deprive us of confidence in the verdict," the decision says.
Prall's brother John Prall died a few days after the North Trenton house fire and John Prall's girlfriend Kimberly Meadows was severely injured in the blaze. A medical examiner testified that John Prall "basically was broiled or baked to death."
At the trial, Meadows testified that when she awoke on fire in the house, and screamed to John Prall that he was on fire, he "started hollering and screaming saying oh, my God. My brother, my brother."
Meadows repeated the testimony 22 times on the stand, and Smithson eventually instructed the jury to disregard it because it was inflammatory.
"Unfortunately, that instruction came twelve days after the testimony," the appeals decision said.
Jury to decide Trenton man's guilt in brother's murder
Also during the trial, Tormu Prall's own girlfriend testified she was afraid of him and he'd made threats to burn her two houses down prior to the deadly fire that killed his brother.
Police found no physical evidence linking Tormu Prall to the crime, the decision says.
But just before trial, and six years after first speaking to the police about him, Tormu Prall's girlfriend revealed she threw away a yellow t-shirt she found in her Trenton home three days after the fire and claimed he wore it in the hours before the fire.
And it had dried blood and skin smeared across the front. She testified that she threw it away because she was scared of him.
The prosecution use the girlfriend's testimony of Tormu Prall's alleged prior threats to burn down her houses to bolster her credibility of her fear of Tormu Prall, and that should not have been admitted, the decision says.
The testimony "carried the very real risk the jury would conclude that because defendant threatened his girlfriend with burning down her houses, he has a propensity to set fires to harm people with whom he is angry, and thus must have set the fire that killed his brother," the decision says.
The prosecutor then "misused" the evidence in closing remarks, arguing that is how Tormu Prall thinks, saying "That's how he thinks. That's how he gets revenge on people. That's how he does it. He sets houses on fire."
And Smithson's failure to instruct the jurors about the testimony "left them free to use the evidence against defendant as the prosecutor urged."
Prall, now 44, is currently incarcerated at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.
He is also serving a 10-year term for an unrelated 2006 case in which he was convicted of aggravated assault, resisting arrest and eluding police following an incident in which he threw a brick through a window at his girlfriend's home.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.