Bucks County District Attorney Disagrees With Gov. Wolf’s Death Penalty Moratorium

Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler disagrees with Gov. Tom Wolf’s controversial move to issue a moratorium on Pennsylvania’s death penalty.

Heckler, a former state lawmaker and judge, said Wolf’s action reaches beyond the scope of the governor’s job.

Wolf issued the halt on the death penalty early last month. He called the death penalty “error-prone, expensive and anything but infallible.”

Heckler isn’t alone. The Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association denounced Wolf’s move, which he promised to do during his campaign for governor.

“[Wolf] has rejected the decisions of juries that wrestled with the facts and the law before unanimously imposing the death penalty, disregarded a long line of decisions made by Pennsylvania and federal judges, ignored the will of the legislature, and ultimately turned his back on the silenced victims of cold-blooded killers,” the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association statement read.

Recently, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams filed a lawsuit against Wolf. In the suit, he claims Wolf’s moratorium is unconstitutional.

“Our constitution does not allow the governor to satisfy his own personal opinions by halting a capital murderer’s sentence that was authorized by state statute, imposed by a unanimous Philadelphia jury, and upheld by state and federal courts,” Williams said in a statement.

“I agree with the lawsuit filed by Mr. Williams,” Heckler told LevittownNow.com.

“Wolf said he will grant a reprieve each time a death row inmate is scheduled for execution but keep the inmates’ death sentences intact,” The Allentown’s Morning Call reported.

Heckler said Wolf’s moratorium will have no impact on the way his office handles death penalty considerations and cases currently making their way through the courts.

The Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association notes in its statement:

Public safety is served when the most cold-blooded, heinous killers are publicly convicted and sentenced to death. The death penalty is sought in rare instances and only when the facts of a case meet the narrowest requirements by law. Rightly so, every case is examined exhaustively. No one, including the governor, has the legal right to nullify the jurors’ unanimous verdict and unanimous sentencing or the decades-long gauntlet each case must run through the appellate system.

Heckler said he thinks if someone wants to change the state’s death penalty, it should come from the legislature, not the governor.

During former Gov. Tom Corbertt’s four years in office, he signed 48 death warrants, according to Department of Correction documents.

Three people have been executed since 1978 in the commonwealth with the last being in 1999, state records show.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, there are currently 185 death row inmates throughout the state prison system.

Bucks County prosecutors are currently seeking the death penalty against Bristol Township resident Marcel Johnson, who is accused of killing Ebony Talley and her 4-year-old daughter in 2013.