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 Eric Frein, 31, appeared at his arraignment through a video
conference from Pike County Correctional Facility, where he is being
held without bail.
He was asked by Judge Greg Chelak in the Pike County Courthouse
whether he wanted to plead not guilty to fatally shooting Corporal
Bryon Dickson and wounding Trooper Alex Douglass on Sept. 12, 2014
during a late night shift change at the Blooming Grove state police
barracks.
"That's what I wish," Frein said in a firm voice, standing tall and
still in an orange jumpsuit.
Pale, clean shaven and looking almost bookish, far from the
bedraggled man he appeared at the time of his arrest, he repeatedly
answered the judge's questions about whether he had seen paperwork
with a polite, "Yes, I have" and "Yes, I do."
 If convicted of the top charge of first-degree murder, Frein could
face the death penalty.
Asked outside the courtroom about the possibility of a plea bargain
to spare Frein from a death sentence, District Attorney Ray Tonkin,
said he was "not considering a plea at this time." He declined to
discuss the case further.
Prosecutors have said Frein harbored anti-government views for years
and hoped the shootings would spark a "revolution."
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After the gun violence, Frein, who lived at his parents' home not
far from the ambush site and is an experienced outdoorsman, fled
into the surrounding Pocono Mountains, about 100 miles north of
Philadelphia. The FBI put him on its Most Wanted List and an
intensive manhunt put the community on edge for weeks - at a cost of
$11 million.
He was captured by U.S. Marshals outside an abandoned airplane
hangar in a former resort near Tannersville, Pennsylvania.
Judge Chelak added Frein to the March trial list but defense lawyer
Michael Weinstein said he believed the case would not go to trial
before 2016.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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