Judge to decide if homicide suspect should have bond option

The attorney representing a Hanover Township man accused of fatally shooting his father asked a Washington County judge to set bond for his client, who has been jailed since summer.
Joseph Robert Warrick Jr., 23, of Florence, is charged with the July 3 killing of his namesake in their home after a confrontation over a missing vape pen.
Warrick Jr.’s attorney, Christopher Blackwell, called two witnesses, family friends who testified to the defendant’s good character, said he is not a flight risk, and would comply with any conditions of bail. Friends and family members also wrote letters of support to the court.
Blackwell argued bond can only be denied if the evidence is so convincing there is a “strong likelihood” that Warrick could be convicted of a crime that carries a life sentence.
Blackwell maintains there is not an open-and-shut case that Warrick Jr. would be convicted of first-degree intentional murder or second-degree murder, both of which carry sentences of life imprisonment.
The Commonwealth is not seeking the death penalty against the younger Warrick, an option only with first-degree murder, and the crime does not fit the description of second-degree murder, which is a killing that occurs during the course of another felony.
“The evidence in this case from the preliminary hearing transcript and the statement Joey gave to the police, which was submitted to the judge, show this was not a pre-meditated murder, so first- and second-degree murder are off the table,” Blackwell said after the hearing Wednesday.
Assistant District Attorney John Friedmann did not call witnesses but offered testimony from a preliminary hearing, for which he presented a transcript to Judge Valarie Costanzo.
Friedmann contends, “The proof is evident and the presumption great,” and cited testimony from Washington County Coroner Timothy Warco, who described the cause of death of Warrick Sr., 46, as a through-and-through gunshot wound to the chest.
Two witnesses to events surrounding the fatal shooting described at a preliminary hearing tension between father and son at the home they shared as the father was to depart for a fishing trip.
According to testimony at the hearing, Warrick Sr. had asked his son to smoke marijuana with him, and when the father could not find a vape pen, he became agitated and the two men argued.
The prosecutor offered this as evidence of a specific intent to kill because there was “deadly force from a handgun through a vital part of the body.
“This is obviously something that wasn’t planned forever,” Friedmann said, but forming an intent to kill means, “therefore, that the crime is not bailable.”
Warrick Jr. monitored the proceedings via video streamed to Washington County jail but did not testify.
Briefs from both sides are due Dec. 22.
A pretrial conference on the case was postponed because Washington County Court has suspended jury trials through Jan. 31 because of a resurgence of the novel coronavirus.