INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The case against a man convicted of killing his minister father, stepmother and two young stepsisters in 1989 must be dismissed because he did not receive a speedy trial, the state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

In July 2006, jurors convicted Jeffrey Pelley of using a shotgun to kill the four inside their church parsonage home near Lakeville. The 36-year-old is serving a 160-year prison sentence.

However, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge should have granted Pelley's motion to dismiss the case because he was not tried within a year of charges being filed.

An Indiana law requires the timeline be followed unless the defense or congested court calendars cause delays. The appeals court in a 2-1 decision ruled that the state's nearly three-year appeal to use Pelley family counseling records as evidence caused the delay, not the defense.

"The one-year period ... had already expired when Pelley agreed to the July 2006 trial date during the October 2005 pretrial conference," Judge John T. Sharpnack wrote in the majority opinion. "Pelley had no duty to object at the time, and his January 2006 motion to dismiss was timely. The trial court abused its discretion by denying Pelley's motion to dismiss."

The Indiana Attorney General's Office plans to ask the state Supreme Court to take up the case, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. It has 30 days to file the appeal.

Pelley's attorney, Stacy R. Uliana, said prosecutors had 13 years to gather evidence, but waited until after her client was charged before seeking the counseling records. If the state Supreme Court does not consider the state's appeal, charges against Pelley would be dismissed and there would be no retrial, she said.

She said that Pelley and his family are "beyond happy, ecstatic" at the ruling.

"We feel a great injustice has been done," she said.

Implicit in the decision was that the evidence against her client was weak, Uliana said.

Pelley was found guilty of murdering his father, the Rev. Robert Pelley, 38; stepmother Dawn, 32; and stepsisters Janel, 8, and Jolene, 6, at the parsonage of Olive Branch Church of the United Brethren, about 10 miles south of South Bend. Investigators said Pelley was angry because his father had grounded him for stealing and would allow him to attend only his prom dance, missing other prom activities.

Prosecutors alleged that during a 20-minute span on April 28, 1989, Pelley shot his family members, disposed of the shotgun and shells, took a shower, put his clothes in the washer and left for the LaVille High School prom.

The defense argued there wasn't enough time for him to have done all that and still make it to the dance. They also said no one could commit such a gruesome attack and still act "normal" during the prom events, as his friends testified during the trial.

Authorities at the time questioned the 17-year-old high school senior. However, he was not charged until August 2002, when authorities reinterpreted evidence.

After charges were filed, the state subpoenaed the Family and Children's Center seeking all Pelley family counseling records for three years leading up to the murders. The center refused, arguing they were protected information under counselor/client privilege, an argument the state Supreme Court rejected in June 2005.

Pelley asked that the case be dismissed under the speedy trial law, which St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Roland W. Chamblee Jr. rejected, saying the motion was not timely.

But the appeals court said the defense did nothing to "set in motion" the state's petition for the Supreme Court to rule on the documents. Indiana's speedy trial law does not allow for a "blanket exception" of such appeals, the court wrote.

Appeals Judge Ezra Friedlander dissented, saying the delay was not the fault of either side, rather it was "attributable to the judicial process itself, i.e., the movement of cases through the appellate courts, which is entirely beyond the litigants' control in precisely the same way that a congested trial court calendar is beyond their control."

Read the Indiana Court of Appeals' opinion. (.pdf)