Defendants Petition the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Alleging Washington County District Attorney Abused His Discretion in Death Penalty Cases

On July 22, 2025, attor­neys with the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation filed a peti­tion on behalf of two crim­i­nal defen­dants — Jordan Clarke and Joshua George — alleg­ing Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh has demon­strat­ed a pat­tern of improp­er­ly threat­en­ing or seek­ing death sen­tences in vio­la­tion of the United States Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution. The attor­neys are ask­ing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its ​“extra­or­di­nary juris­dic­tion” to impose exter­nal over­sight of the Washington County DA’s office; review every case in which DA Walsh sought death since 2021; and/​or pro­vide spe­cif­ic relief to Mr. Clarke and Mr. George. 

Following this fil­ing at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, on July 25, 2025, coun­sel for peti­tion­ers report­ed that they were con­tact­ed by the Washington County Coroner who pro­vid­ed them with an affi­davit stat­ing DA Walsh coerced him to file a fraud­u­lent death cer­tifi­cate because he need­ed a homi­cide ​“to win an elec­tion.” These lat­est alle­ga­tions are reflect­ed in a July 28^th motion to sup­ple­ment the petition. 

The peti­tion alleges DA Walsh has dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly and improp­er­ly sought the death penal­ty and is using the death penal­ty to ​“coerce guilty pleas, force coop­er­a­tion from defen­dants, and accrue polit­i­cal cap­i­tal, or to sim­ply inflict cru­el­ty.” None of these pur­pos­es fall with­in the legit­i­mate uses of the death penal­ty iden­ti­fied by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia (inca­pac­i­ta­tion, deter­rence, and ret­ri­bu­tion). Since being elect­ed in 2021, DA Walsh has sought a death sen­tence in eleven out of eigh­teen death-eli­gi­ble homi­cides in the coun­ty (61%), sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than any oth­er pros­e­cu­tor in the state, accord­ing to the peti­tion­ers. Ten of these eleven cas­es were charged in the run up to his reelec­tion cam­paign in 2023. Washington County com­pris­es 1.6% of the state’s pop­u­la­tion but accounts for 26% of the state’s cap­i­tal­ly charged cas­es, a sit­u­a­tion that attor­neys for Mr. Clark and Mr. George char­ac­ter­ized as a ​“cri­sis.” 

The peti­tion alleges DA Walsh has ​“man­u­fac­tured a loop­hole” by ini­tial­ly charg­ing defen­dants with the more gen­er­al crime of crim­i­nal homi­cide (which can encom­pass every­thing from manslaugh­ter to first-degree mur­der) at a defendant’s pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing, only to lat­er file notice of alleged aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances, often with­out sup­port, to war­rant the more puni­tive, death-eli­gi­ble charge of first-degree mur­der. As a result, accord­ing to the peti­tion, defen­dants ​“unnec­es­sar­i­ly and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly” face ​“the threat of an improp­er cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion[.]” This includes ​“the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a coerced guilty plea, [and] a lengthy death-qual­i­fi­ca­tion jury process[.]” The peti­tion alleges that “[e]ven those who may ulti­mate­ly get relief spend years in jail with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bail, while bear­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal bur­den of a loom­ing cap­i­tal tri­al.” The peti­tion pro­vides sev­er­al exam­ples to sup­port the pat­tern, includ­ing that of Jah Zhannee Inifi Sutton, who spent near­ly four years in pre­tri­al deten­tion before the court dis­missed all the charges against her on July 11, 2025, call­ing the state’s case ​“based whol­ly on speculation.” 

The peti­tion alleges that DA Walsh’s actions are also cost­ly for tax­pay­ers, putting an ​“intol­er­a­ble strain on the defense bar and the Washington County bud­get.” It notes that defense attor­neys need to know the spe­cif­ic alle­ga­tions fac­ing their clients argu­ing ​“that with­out more spe­cif­ic alle­ga­tions, [] defen­dants could not prepare defenses.” 

The peti­tion calls on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to exer­cise its pow­er to inter­vene and rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion for all cap­i­tal defen­dants in the Washington County, as well as for peti­tion­ers Mr. Clarke and Mr. George specif­i­cal­ly, by adopt­ing ​“some or all” of the request­ed injunc­tive relief. They ask for the state supreme court to estab­lish exter­nal over­sight of the Washington County DA’s office by requir­ing DA Walsh to have approval from an out-of-coun­ty judge pri­or to seek­ing the death penal­ty, that he con­sult with the Attorney General’s cap­i­tal unit regard­ing deci­sions to seek the death penal­ty, and/​or that he be over­seen by a spe­cial mas­ter autho­rized to review deci­sions to seek the death penal­ty. The peti­tion also requests an out-of-coun­ty judge review every cap­i­tal case charged in the coun­ty since DA Walsh took office in 2021. They fur­ther ask that the DA’s office be pro­hib­it­ed from seek­ing death in the spe­cif­ic cas­es of Mr. Clarke and Mr. George. 

Both peti­tion­ers, Mr. Clarke and Mr. George, are fac­ing the death penal­ty for caus­ing the deaths of their own infant chil­dren, alleged­ly due to fatal injury caused by exces­sive shak­ing and trau­ma, although there are con­flict­ing med­ical opin­ions on the cause of death in the for­mer case and on the time of death in the lat­ter case. Importantly, in both cas­es, the peti­tion alleges, DA Walsh filed a notice to increase the charge to death-eli­gi­ble homi­cide with­out prop­er­ly estab­lish­ing ​“ver­i­fi­able facts” or ​“proof” sup­port­ing the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors to war­rant such a change. 

In addi­tion to fail­ing to estab­lish grounds for a cap­i­tal charge, the peti­tion alleges fur­ther impro­pri­ety by the Washington County’s DA office in these cas­es. For exam­ple, in Mr. George’s case, the peti­tion alleges DA Walsh’s First Assistant failed to dis­close excul­pa­to­ry tes­ti­mo­ny to the defense until after the pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing. In Mr. Clarke’s case, the peti­tion alleges DA Walsh inter­vened so that Washington County would con­duct the autop­sy despite the death occur­ring in Alleghany County. Although Washington County pathol­o­gist Jennifer Hammers found the cause of death to be ​“blunt-force trau­ma of the head and tor­so,” Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco filed an invalid death cer­tifi­cate stat­ing the death was due to ​“Shaken Baby Syndrome/​Abusive Trauma” and deemed it a homi­cide after Alleghany County had already filed a death cer­tifi­cate. The Department of Health did not accept Coroner Warco’s improp­er fil­ing, rather accept­ing the death cer­tifi­cate filed by Allegheny County which list­ed cause of death as ​“intracra­nial hem­or­rhage” and ​“man­ner of death as undetermined.” 

The affi­davit pro­vid­ed by Washington County Coroner Warco on July 25, 2025 states that DA Walsh coerced him to file a fraud­u­lent death cer­tifi­cate in the case of Mr. Clarke’s child to ensure it was deemed a homi­cide. Coroner Warco alleges that DA Walsh told him, “[you] know that I need this to be a homi­cide, I need it to win an elec­tion,” as his cam­paign plat­form focused on harsh pun­ish­ment for those who kill chil­dren. Globally, the United States is the only coun­try to elect pros­e­cu­tors.