PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia prosecutors will file legal notice Wednesday that they are considering seeking the death penalty for accused abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office has confirmed.
Filing the legal notice does not lock the district attorney’s
office into pursuing capital punishment, said Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for District Attorney Seth Williams.
But Wednesday is the deadline for prosecutors to officially put the Common Pleas Court and Gosnell and defense attorney Jack McMahon on notice that death by lethal injection remains
on the table if the 70-year-old physician is found guilty of first-degree murder.
Gosnell, who ran his own abortion clinic, Women’s Medical Society, in Philadelphia, is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of seven infants born alive and viable but allegedly killed by him.
He is also charged with third-degree murder in the 2009 death of a patient administered too much anesthesia by unqualified clinic personnel.
Lawyers for Gosnell, his wife Pearl, 50, and eight former clinic workers charged with them, are to be in Common Pleas Court on Wednesday for a formal arraignment on the charges. It is at that hearing — normally a pro forma exchange of documents and other evidence — that the death penalty notice is expected to become public.
Assistant District Attorneys Joanne Pescatore and Christine Wechsler could not be reached for comment.
McMahon said he had not been told of the DA’s decision but added that he would not be surprised if the prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty.
The capital punishment issue came the same day it was learned that another Philadelphia judge had frozen the assets of Gosnell and his wife.
The order by Common Pleas Court Judge Paul P. Panepinto was issued Friday on a request by lawyer Bernard W. Smalley. Smalley filed a lawsuit in January on behalf of Yashoda Devi Gurung, daughter and administrator of the estate of a Virginia woman, Karnamaya Mongar, 41, who died in 2009 undergoing an abortion at Gosnell’s clinic.
Panepinto scheduled a hearing on the order freezing Gosnell’s assets for March 9 and ordered Gosnell’s representatives to file a complete list of his holdings.
Gosnell, 70, is being held in the Philadelphia prisons without bail on murder and related charges in Mongar’s death and the deaths of seven newborn infants whom he allegedly killed by cutting their spinal cords with surgical scissors.
Though Gosnell and his wife initially asked to be represented by public defenders, claiming they were destitute, city prosecutors said they had discovered more than a dozen properties, including a $900,000 Jersey shore property, in the couple’s names.
Smalley was not immediately available for comment.
McMahon, who is representing Gosnell in criminal charges filed in connection with the operation of the Women’s Medical Society clinic, said he did not believe Panepinto’s order would affect Gosnell’s ability to defend himself in the criminal case.
McMahon noted that Panepinto’s order exempts Gosnell’s legal fees and expenses needed in his criminal defense as well as payment of state and federal taxes.
Gosnell, his wife and eight clinic employees were criminally charged in January after the release of a 260-page report of the county grand jury, which described in gory, horrific detail how Gosnell allegedly performed illegal late-term abortions for poor women, in some cases killing infants born viable.
Four employees are charged with murder — two involving Mongar’s death and two involving the newborns.
Gosnell’s wife and all the employees are also charged variously with counts of conspiracy, racketeering, record-tampering, obstruction of justice and perjury.
Only two of the defendants have been released on bail: Tina Baldwin, after posting 10 percent of $150,000, and Madeline Joe, after posting 10 percent of $250,000.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
