Oct 14, 2025 By Mike Jones 5 min read

The Philadelphia lawyers asking the state Supreme Court to restrict Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh’s ability to pursue the death penalty are pointing to last week’s acquittal of one of their clients to bolster their claims that he has been unjustly wielding the threat of capital punishment against some homicide defendants.

“The acquittal of Joshua George is probably the best evidence of what we’ve been claiming all along: that Jason Walsh is inappropriately using the death penalty for personal gain,” said Marc Bookman, who is executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation.

George was found not guilty on all charges Thursday following his four-day homicide trial last week in connection with the shaking and beating death of his 6-month-old son, Oliver, nearly four years ago. Bookman said the lightning-quick verdict in which the jury returned its acquittal after deliberating for less than 90 minutes illustrated the weakness of the prosecution’s case while also raising questions about the decision to pursue the death penalty against George in the first place.

“This jury deliberated for less than an hour-and-a-half,” Bookman said. “There was a clear alternate suspect, and the timing of the death was very much in question. So Walsh sought death in a case where the defendant was far from clearly guilty, and was likely innocent. By what calculation, other than Walsh trying to win an election, does Joshua George appear to be a candidate for capital punishment?”

The Atlantic Center filed the petition to the state Supreme Court on July 22 on behalf of George and Jordan Clarke, who is awaiting trial in his own capital homicide case involving the shaking death of his son in 2022, accusing Walsh of wielding the threat of the death penalty for political reasons while running for election in 2023 or to leverage plea agreements against defendants. The petition questioned why Washington County at one point had more than one-quarter of all capital cases in Pennsylvania despite only having 1.6% of the population in the state.

Bookman said the George acquittal illustrates the need for the Supreme Court to step in and handcuff Walsh’s ability to pursue capital cases, which are costly and time-consuming for counties.

“Many reasonable prosecutors don’t think the death penalty is a good use of their resources. But assuming a reasonable prosecutor does believe in the death penalty, he must look at two factors: is the defendant clearly guilty, and only if so, is the defendant the worst of the worst deserving of a death sentence,” Bookman said.

Reached for comment Monday, Walsh scoffed at the Atlantic Center’s response to the George verdict and questioned the group’s motivations.

“The system is what the system is,” Walsh said. “They have no clue what they’re talking about. They need to stay in Philadelphia. They represent criminals.”

Instead, the district attorney suggested the trial’s outcome showed the judicial system worked as intended by giving the suspect an opportunity to defend himself in court.

“It actually proves the system works,” Walsh said. “It’s been around for over two centuries. Good, bad or indifferent. The system works.”

But Bookman said Walsh’s decisions in the lead-up to the trial were concerning. He pointed specifically to a decision not to call the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s pathologist who performed the autopsy on Oliver because that doctor concluded the boy’s injuries happened within two hours of him becoming unresponsive, which was out of the timespan when George was alone with the boy. Instead, it was George’s defense team that located Dr. Todd Luckasevic, subpoenaed him and asked him to testify in order to get his medical opinions on the record.

Bookman accused the prosecution of hiding Luckasevic and his medical report from the defense before George’s attorneys located him and asked him to testify.

“It is certainly OK for the prosecution to use an expert they believe is correct, and reject an expert they think is incorrect,” Bookman said. “But it is not OK for the prosecution to deceive the defense about the existence of the expert they are not using, and the willingness of that expert to testify. And when you are considering whether the death penalty should apply, the fact that there are reasonable experts on both sides of an issue should weigh strongly against the death penalty in that case.”

That fits into similar circumstances of Clarke’s situation in which the Atlantic Center claims Walsh pressured Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco to rule the manner of death in that case as homicide after the medical examiner in Allegheny County decided the manner could not be determined.

“Once again, the evidence suggests that Walsh is not a reasonable prosecutor, but one seeking his own gain at the expense of honest justice,” Bookman said.

While George’s inclusion in the petition is now “moot” because he no longer faces the possibility of the death penalty, the circumstances of his case and his acquittal still could be included in filings for the Supreme Court to weigh when making its decision. Devell Christian and Sidney McLean, who are also facing capital homicide charges in Washington County, have filed as intervenors with the Atlantic Center, while the state Attorney General’s office has submitted filings on behalf of Walsh.