Westmoreland County prosecutors will not appeal a judge’s ruling that overturned the decades-old murder and arson convictions of a former Jeannette man.
During a pretrial conference Monday, Assistant District Attorney Leo Ciaramitaro said the case against James Young will proceed. The new trial will happen 30 years after Young was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for setting the 1993 fire that killed his wife and two young children.
Young, 58, was originally convicted following a 1995 trial in which prosecutors claimed he torched the family’s 14th Street home and failed to rescue his wife and children as the blaze raged. Killed in the fire were Young’s 26-year-old wife, Gina Marie; his stepson, Shaun Holden, 3; and Joshua, the couple’s 7-month-old baby.
A Westmoreland County jury rejected the prosecution’s request to impose the death penalty against Young.
In March, after years of appeals, Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Feliciani found Young’s convictions were based on debunked science that classified the fatal fire as arson. Under revised investigatory guidelines, the cause of the fire would now be ruled as undecided, the judge ruled.
Prosecution experts testified at trial the fire was arson.
Investigators said they found gasoline cans outside the house and traces of fuel soaked into the diaper of Young’s infant son. Burn patterns in the house suggested the blaze was intentionally set. Arson dogs detected evidence that an accelerant was used to set the fire, according the the prosecution’s theory of the case.
A defense-hired expert testified during a 2021 appeal hearing that the fire science used by investigators in the mid-1990s is no longer accepted as viable.
Revised standards call for limiting how dogs are used in the early stages of fire investigations and downplay the use of burn patterns to determine if a blaze was intentionally set, according to the defense.
Throughout the appeals process, prosecutors defended the convictions as valid while conceding the origin of the fatal fire could no longer be labeled as arson. Enough circumstantial evidence remained that included Young’s actions that night, his history of domestic violence and circumstances of the fire to substantiate the guilty verdicts, prosecutors contended.
Elizabeth DeLosa, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which has represented Young during his latest appeals and will continue to serve as his defense lawyer for his new trial, said the defense theory of the case remains as it was in 1995.
“Mr. Young continues to maintain he absolutely did not set this fire,” DeLosa said.
Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli declined to discuss the decision to forgo an appeal of the judge’s ruling to overturn Young’s conviction.
“Our intention is to proceed with the criminal charges and the prosecution of the case,” according to a statement issued by office spokeswoman Melanie Jones.
Warren and Pat Lupson, the parents and grandparents of the fire victims, attended Monday’s court hearing in which prosecutors and defense lawyers told the judge they will meet early next month to discuss specifics and logistics of the pending trial.
“We have to let the legal system go on as it has to,” Warren Lupson said following Monday’s brief court session.
Evidence used in the 1995 trial has been in storage at the county’s clerk of courts office for the past 30 years and will be turned over to prosecutors in advance of a new trial, Ciaramitaro said.
The lawyers will next appear again in June before Common Pleas Judge Michael Stewart for another pretrial conference. A date for the retrial has not been set.