A potential death penalty case against a man accused of killing two women in a machete attack at the Hotel Jermyn in December moved forward Thursday.
Judge Andy Jarbola ruled prosecutors’ request to seek capital punishment was procedurally sound.
Michael Woods, 28, who had an apartment on the Scranton building’s sixth floor, approached Linda Fortuna and Terry M. Muller near the floor’s elevator before slashing them to death Dec. 9, prosecutors said. He slashed another resident, sending her to the hospital, prosecutors said.
In March, Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher announced his office would seek the death penalty.
During a Thursday hearing, defense attorney David Paul Cherundolo presented several motions challenging the prosecution’s assertion of aggravating circumstances and its intent to seek the death penalty.
Cherundolo wrote that the prosecution could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Woods intentionally inflicted “a considerable amount of pain and suffering that was unnecessarily heinous, atrocious, cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity.”
In defense of Woods, Cherundolo also took issue with the prosecution’s assertion that Woods put others at risk during during the deaths of the two women and injury to a third.
“In the present case, the attacker utilized a machete-type weapon rather than a firearm, which significantly narrowed the zone of danger,” he wrote. “Each victim was attacked in a separate and distinct area, which corroborated by the evidence … “
Jarbola ruled the motions were premature and did not rule on them.
Deputy District Attorney Sara Varela had only one question for Jarbola, asking if the prosecutors properly framed the case as a capital case, and he said they did, upholding the prosecution’s capital designation for the homicide trial.
Woods is charged with two counts of criminal homicide, one count of attempted criminal homicide, two counts of aggravated assault and one count of aggravated cruelty to animals. He remains at the Lackawanna County Prison, held without bail.
Pennsylvania has a moratorium on executions imposed by former Gov. Tom Wolf in February 2015. Gov. Josh Shapiro announced in February 2023 that he would continue the moratorium on executions, pledging to sign a reprieve for any execution warrant that reaches his desk, citing a fallible system.
There are about 100 inmates currently on death row in Pennsylvania, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Among them are Eric Frein, found guilty in the 2014 homicide of state police Cpl. Bryon Dickson II outside the Blooming Grove barracks in Pike County.