Dec 23, 2016 4 min read

Washington County Court Administrator Patrick Grimm used the term “random” several times as he testified Friday about the process used to summon prospective jurors for the death-penalty murder case in which Jordan Clemons was convicted of the premeditated slaying of Karissa Kunco nearly four years ago.

Assistant Public Defender Charles Carpinelli last fall asked Judge Gary Gilman to vacate Clemons’ sentence and acquit him of the charges because no members of the jury were black.

According to Pennsylvania law, only a jury – not a judge acting alone – can impose a death sentence.

Grimm said the software system then in use by his office randomly selected the names of 500 potential jurors who were mailed summonses. Of these, 107 were returned as undeliverable, 33 received deferments, 57 were excused, five were disqualified because they had been convicted of crimes, one could not speak or write the English language and 59 were “disqualified by statute.”

Nine of the people were deceased. President Judge Katherine B. Emery excused 28 of them because people age 70 or older can request an exemption. Of those remaining, one was a caregiver, five had some type of hardship and 14 were disabled or had some type of medical problem for which they were also excused from service.

Prospective jurors reported in March 2015 for the selection process, well in advance of the beginning of testimony in May of that year.

One of the reasons the pool of jurors in a capital case is so large is that prospective jurors must be able to consider all sentencing options. Those who are opposed to the death penalty are stricken from serving on the jury.

Carpinelli asked Grimm how many racial minorities were among the 500 people on the original list. “There is no way for me to know,” Grimm replied. He said there are two questionnaires for jurors, one of which is considered confidential.

Gilman asked Grimm if the juror-selection software could exclude prospective jurors by race, and the court administrator testified he could not because race is not categorized as part of the system, which includes names, birth dates, addresses and, in some cases, Social Security numbers. The database of prospective jurors is compiled from driver’s license information, voter registration lists and information provided by the state departments of revenue and human services.

Assistant District Attorney Jerome Moschetta asked Grimm if he could override or exclude anyone from the selection process, and Grimm replied that he could not.

Gilman, who said he heard testimony to “develop the record,” took the matter under advisement. Clemons, now 27, has been incarcerated at SCI-Greene County.

Karissa Kunco, 21, a resident of Baldwin Borough in suburban Pittsburgh, obtained a restraining order against Clemons from Allegheny County Court following a Dec. 18, 2011, assault that left her face bruised and misshapen.

Kunco was last seen alive Jan. 11, 2012, before she agreed to met Clemons that night after he threatened to kill himself, according to social media accounts shown in court during Clemons’ trial. State police allege that after slitting her throat, Clemons dragged Kunco’s naked body into the woods in rural Washington County and covered it with leaves, brush and a tree stump.

Clemons was the Observer-Reporter’s high school football player of the year in 2006 when he was a senior at Fort Cherry High School. He also was a leading rusher in the WPIAL that year, having run for 1,888 yards in just 10 games.

According to DeathPenaltyInfo.org, the three Pennsylvania “prisoners executed since 1978 have all been volunteers with serious mental health issues, whom courts have found to have waived their rights to an appeals process.” Last year, Gov. Tom Wolf announced a moratorium on executions, citing concerns about innocence, racial bias and the death penalty’s effects on victims’ families.

Although it was not part of Friday’s testimony, the 2010 U.S. Census reported a black population in Washington County of 3.25 percent of 207,820 total residents of all ages. Allegheny County, where Clemons was living at the time of Kunco’s death, had a population composed of 13.2 percent black residents, according to the census.