1 week Ago By Mike Jones
The civil attorney for a Peters Township father accused of killing his infant son in 2022 is arguing that Washington County’s district attorney, coroner and former president judge should not be immune from his lawsuit because of their “scandalous” actions withholding the baby’s body from the family for seven months after his death. Noah Geary filed the lawsuit in December on behalf of Jordan Clarke and his family accusing District Attorney Jason Walsh, Judge John DiSalle and Coroner Timothy Warco of using the court system to keep custody of 11-week-old Sawyer Clarke’s body under the guise of preserving evidence in the homicide investigation. “No judge, district attorney or coroner can deprive a family from burying their own,” Geary said during oral arguments Wednesday morning before Senior Judge Dominick Motto at the Washington County Courthouse.
Clarke, 39, is charged with homicide and facing the death penalty if convicted in the death of Sawyer, who investigators said suffered fatal injuries at the hands of his father on May 23, 2022. Geary, who previously served as Clarke’s defense attorney before filing the lawsuit, contends that his client tripped on a plastic bag while holding Sawyer and fell inside their McMurray home. Sawyer was taken to a Pittsburgh hospital, where he died the next day, and Clarke was arrested and charged two weeks later.
The lawsuit claims Walsh worked independently with DiSalle, who was president judge at the time, to have court orders removing Sawyer’s body from Allegheny County’s custody after an autopsy was performed there and brought back to Washington County for an additional autopsy. But even after that autopsy was performed, the family was not able to bury the child since the funeral home was told it was not permitted to release the body. A subsequent court order in September 2022 signed by DiSalle at the behest of Walsh turned custody of the body over to Warco’s office for safekeeping.
Geary said it wasn’t until a final court order from DiSalle on Dec. 15, 2022, after he and Walsh had spoken about the situation regarding the boy’s body – which at that point had decomposed badly due to “limited refrigeration capabilities” – that the remains were finally returned to the family for burial. “Right from the start, DA Walsh is steering this case to Washington County despite it being an Allegheny County death,” Geary said.
Walsh’s attorney, Sarah Cobbs, argued that the two-year statute of limitations had run out because the district attorney’s motions that were approved by DiSalle were filed in May and September 2022, but the lawsuit wasn’t filed until last December. She added that Walsh was acting within his role as district attorney in investigating the boy’s death and preserving what little evidence they had, which included the boy’s body. “Sawyer Clarke was the only form of evidence in this case.
Everything (Walsh) did was in the scope of his role (as district attorney) for the prosecution of Jordan Clarke in the homicide of Sawyer Clarke,” Cobbs said. “He was doing what he needed for the prosecution of Mr. Clarke to make sure the body was preserved as evidence so it wasn’t cremated, it wasn’t buried and so it was available for tissue samples.
” Geary called that a “bogus issue” and questioned why prosecutors would ever need to keep a body for seven months after an autopsy, especially since a capital case like the one Clarke is facing typically takes years to adjudicate. He surmised that Walsh directed Warco to perform a second autopsy on the boy because the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office ruled the manner of death as undetermined, which could undermine the capital case. “This is utter lawlessness from its inception, and it’s ongoing,” Geary said.
Jennifer Herrmann, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts attorney who is representing DiSalle, argued that the judge was acting within his jurisdiction and performed a judicial act, which should limit his exposure in the lawsuit. Warco’s attorney, Mary Lou Maierhofer, said her client appears to be caught up in a fight not of his own doing since he was merely following court orders. “It sounds like this is a war between the commonwealth and the Clarke family, and he’s stuck in the middle of it,” she said.
She noted that it was up to the family to file a motion requesting the body be returned, which eventually happened. Maierhofer said Warco and his office were doing what they were told from the May and September orders in 2022 before returning the body as requested in the final order. “We have the appropriate orders from the court,” Maierhofer said.
“My apologies to the family for what I’m about to say, but we have to take the emotions out of this case. We have to look at it under the law.” But Geary said Walsh and DiSalle’s actions followed a “pattern of abuse for years” when it comes to court orders involving criminal cases, although he admitted this situation is one of a kind.
“What the judge and the district attorney and the coroner did, it was scandalous,” Geary said. “If the nature of my (argument) is scandalous, it’s because it is.” Clarke attended the proceeding through video conferencing from the Washington County jail, where he has been held without bond since being charged with homicide and other felony counts two weeks after Sawyer’s death.
Several family members and supporters of Clarke sat in the gallery and listened to the oral arguments and could be seen speaking with Geary following the hearing. The two sides argued for about 90 minutes before Motto, who is the visiting judge from Lawrence County assigned to hear the civil case. Motto said he understands that the case has many nuances, and he would consider the arguments in the suit and the oral arguments made in court before making his decision on whether Walsh, DiSalle and Warco should be granted immunity from the lawsuit, although he did not put a timeline on when that would come.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages, attorney fees and court costs. Clarke is scheduled to appear this morning before Judge Michael Lucas for a pre-trial conference in his criminal case. No trial date has been set for the homicide case.
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