Capital Defense Attorneys Ask Pa. Supreme Court to Halt Washington County DA’s Use of the Death Penalty

CONTACT: Andy Hoover, andy@hoovercomms.com, 717-256-1293

HARRISBURG - A team of capital defense attorneys has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to restrict Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh from pursuing the death penalty. 

In a filing today, the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation implored the court to use its “extraordinary jurisdiction” power to provide oversight on Walsh, who has improperly filed capital charges in cases where the death penalty is clearly not warranted.

“D.A. Walsh has abused his power,” said Marc Bookman, executive director of the Atlantic Center. “He is using the death penalty as a political tool and a cruel threat to coerce people into giving up their constitutional rights under a wrongful threat of death. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court must intervene to stop his abuse of the law and his office.”

Walsh became district attorney in 2021 after the death of his predecessor, Eugene Vittone. Since then, the district attorney’s office has prosecuted 18 homicide cases and filed a notice of capital charges in 11 of those cases. That included ten capital cases in advance of his campaign for district attorney in 2023.

According to the Atlantic Center’s petition, which was filed on behalf of two people currently facing capital charges in Washington County, Walsh has frequently failed to show evidence of first-degree murder and aggravating factors even at the preliminary stages of cases, when the commonwealth’s burden of proof is lower than at trial. 

The death sentence is only available in first-degree murder cases and when one of a list of aggravating circumstances is involved in the case.

“In most counties in Pennsylvania, these cases wouldn’t be death penalty cases,” said Frances Harvey, staff attorney at the Atlantic Center. “D.A. Walsh is well outside the boundaries of the law. Pursuing death against these people is unconstitutional and cruel.

“This is why the General Assembly must repeal the death penalty. The power to decide who lives and who dies can’t be trusted in the hands of a politician.”

While Washington County accounts for less than two percent of Pennsylvania’s population, the county is currently prosecuting 26 percent of the commonwealth’s death penalty cases.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s “extraordinary jurisdiction” power gives the court the ability to intervene in situations of public importance in which the harm that could be done must be resolved outside of normal legal proceedings. 

A copy of the Atlantic Center’s filing is available at this link: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6480a691481b0225c44a9d05/t/687f8e64c352d06a18421d43/1753189989312/Petition+Final.pdf

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