Pennsylvania Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Claims Alleging Washington County DA’s Misconduct in Seeking Death Penalty

District Attorney Jason Walsh of Washington County, Pennsylvania, sought the death penalty in 11 of 18 murder cases in his first four years in office (61%). He has filed capital charges more often than prosecutors in neighboring Allegheny County, which is over five times larger and has a higher murder rate, and more often than his own predecessor, who sought death just five times in nine years. Advocates argue that DA Walsh has abused his discretion and sought to further his political career by repeatedly seeking death sentences despite weak evidence; two of his capital cases ended in an acquittal and a dismissal of all charges just this past year. Yet on October 23, 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined a request from defense attorneys to intervene. The court issued no explanation for its decision. 

Washington County lies outside Pittsburgh on the Ohio border and accounts for less than 2% of the state’s population. Jason Walsh was appointed to his role in 2021 following the death of DA Eugene Vittone, who filed capital charges just a handful of times during his tenure, in line with a long decline in the use of capital punishment in the state. Pennsylvania has been under a death penalty moratorium for over a decade and conducted only three executions¹ in the past half-century, the last in 1999. But DA Walsh quickly became an outlier. In the lead-up to his first election in 2023, he filed capital charges in ten cases — 26% of the state’s capital cases and double DA Vittone’s lifetime total. He won election to a full term.

Though prosecutors and judges have long touted their death penalty records to characterize themselves as “tough on crime” during election cycles, recent evidence suggests diminishing returns for this strategy amidst declining public support for the death penalty. The United States is the only country to elect prosecutors and one of few worldwide to elect judges. Learn more in DPI’s 2024 report, Lethal Election: How the U.S. Electoral Process Increases the Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty. 

Some defense attorneys and advocates quickly accused DA Walsh of abusing his power to seek the death penalty for political gain. Pennsylvania prosecutors may only seek the law’s most severe punishment for the most severe crimes: intentional murders with aggravating factors, such as torture. Yet to critics, DA Walsh appeared to be filing capital charges based on shaky evidence — and in some cases before evidence emerged at all. Many involved the deaths of young children, in line with his campaign promise for harsher punishments in those cases. 

For instance, DA Walsh sought the death penalty against Jordan Clarke for the death of his two-month-old son Sawyer. Mr. Clarke said that he accidentally fell on Sawyer, causing a head injury; the infant later died at a Pittsburgh hospital. Less than an hour after Sawyer’s death — in Allegheny County — DA Walsh’s office filed a motion for the Washington County Coroner’s Office to perform the autopsy. After the autopsy initially found the manner of death to be undetermined, Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco filed a death certificate classifying the death as a homicide due to “Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Trauma.” However, Coroner Warco later swore in an affidavit that DA Walsh had pressured him into this finding and misrepresented Sawyer’s place of death as Washington County in the autopsy motion. “You know that I need this to be a homicide, I need it to win an election,” DA Walsh allegedly said. The state ultimately rejected Coroner Warco’s death certificate, finding that Allegheny County had jurisdiction. 

Similarly, DA Walsh sought the death penalty against Joshua George, arguing that he killed his six-month-old son Oliver by shaking him. Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is a debunked theory holding that certain symptoms in infants, including brain swelling and bleeding, can only occur through malicious shaking. At least 44 caregivers convicted based on SBS have been exonerated nationally. Robert Roberson came within a week of execution in Texas in 2025 based on an SBS theory and continues to fight for his innocence. 

In July 2025, the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation filed a petition on behalf of Mr. Clarke and Mr. George asking the court to limit DA Walsh’s use of the death penalty. “Jason Walsh has been abusing the discretion entrusted to him by using the death penalty to coerce guilty pleas, force cooperation from defendants, and accrue political capital,” the ACCR argued. Attorneys asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its broad power to ensure defendants’ rights were protected, including requiring DA Walsh to consult with the state Attorney General’s office on capital charges; mandating a judge from another county approve any such charges and review all previously-charged capital cases; and appointing a special master to supervise DA Walsh’s office. 

The ACCR accused DA Walsh of repeatedly and prematurely filing death notices against people charged with criminal homicide, which is not death-eligible, calling this tactic a “loophole” that allows DA Walsh to hold defendants in jail pretrial without sufficient evidence of a capital crime. “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,” former ACCR executive director Marc Bookman said when the petition was filed. “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court must intervene to stop his abuse of the law and his office.” The ACCR further contended that “DA Walsh’s abuse of discretion is also responsible for intolerable strain on the defense bar and the Washington County budget.” 

In the months since the petition was filed, Mr. George was acquitted by a jury in less than 90 minutes. Mr. Clarke remains in jail pending trial. And a court upheld the dismissal of all charges against Jah Sutton, for whom DA Walsh had sought the death penalty for a convenience store murder despite undisputed evidence that she was not present in the store. When DA Walsh filed his notice of intent to seek death, Ms. Sutton was being held on conspiracy to commit homicide, which is not a death-eligible offense in Pennsylvania. She was incarcerated for four years before a judge first dismissed the charges last summer, finding DA Walsh’s theory was “based wholly on speculation.” 

However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the ACCR’s petition without comment on October 23. Frances Harvey, the current executive director, said that the group would continue to challenge DA Walsh’s death-seeking activity, calling it “a disgrace to our justice system.” They argued that “people have lost years of their lives in county jail because of Jason Walsh’s reckless pursuit of the death penalty,” and “that kind of misconduct deserves a systems-level response, not mere individual reviews.”