Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania attorney general, left, and Larry Krasner, Philadelphia district attorney, right.

A federal judge has requested that Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office comment on the appropriateness of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner's decision to end pursuit of the death penalty for a convicted double-murderer.

U.S. District Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania had previously denied the District Attorney's Office's request to vacate the death sentence handed down to Robert Wharton for murdering a West Philadelphia couple in their home and leaving their infant daughter for dead.

Goldberg originally denied the request because Krasner's office failed to provide a solid reason for ending the office's three-decade-long fight to preserve the sentence, which Wharton has consistently petitioned to have overturned.

The District Attorney's Office provided an explanation in a brief, but Goldberg said it still wasn't good enough.

“In its brief, the District Attorney's Office notes generally that it has 'carefully reviewed the facts and law' in this case and 'determined that [petitioner's] remaining habeas claim … is not 'lacking in merit.' However, the district attorney's brief does not note whether it has sought out any facts beyond those that are either currently in the record or that have been submitted by petitioner for inclusion under Rule 7,” Goldberg said in his order.

“The district attorney fails to indicate whether it did any investigation regarding petitioner's adverse or negative adjustment to prison,” Goldberg continued. “Nor does the district attorney comment on the expert report submitted by petitioner, that expert's qualifications, or whether the District Attorney's Office has even considered consulting with its own expert. Rather, it appears as though the District Attorney's Office has accepted the additional evidence offered by petitioner at face value, without exploring whether contrary views may be viable and worth considering.”

Since taking office, Krasner has taken a staunch anti-death-penalty stance in the office's prosecutions. But in this case, Goldberg said a third party was needed to assess whether Wharton's petition had any merit—a move that could potentially become a boon for or a rebuke of Krasner's no-execution policy.

The Attorney General's Office has legal authority to get involved in criminal matters on appeal, Goldberg said.

“Accordingly, I will request the Office of the Attorney General of Pennsylvania … to submit an amicus brief in this matter, setting out its position as to whether petitioner is entitled to relief on his remaining habeas claim,” Goldberg said.

The District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the order. Wharton's public defender, Victor Abreu, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In January 1984, Wharton and an accomplice murdered Bradley and Ferne Hart in their West Philadelphia home and turned off the heat before leaving so that the couple's 6-month-old daughter would freeze to death, though she was eventually rescued.

Wharton continuously fought his death sentence over the years through habeas corpus and was opposed at every turn by prosecutors until Krasner, a former defense attorney who campaigned on criminal justice reform.

In his previous opinion denying Krasner's request to vacate Wharton's sentence, Goldberg called the murders “particularly horrific” and expressed bewilderment over the district attorney's decision to end pursuit of execution.

“After so many years of advocating for a death sentence, the District Attorney's Office has now come to believe Wharton's sentence violates the Constitution. And this concession is made without a single explanation,” Goldberg had said. “To accept that view 'blindly' and summarily grant habeas relief without independently reviewing the merits of the remaining claim would be an abdication of my responsibility to perform the judicial function.”

Before the murders, to which he confessed, Wharton embarked on a retaliation campaign consisting of breaking into and vandalizing the Harts' home, mutilating family photos and defecating on the floor, according to Goldberg's opinion.

On the night of Jan. 30, 1984, Wharton and his accomplice again broke into the home and tied up the Harts, watching television for several hours while contemplating what to do with the couple, Goldberg said.

“The wife, Ferne Hart, was then bound in duct tape, taken to the second floor, stripped almost entirely naked and drowned in the bathtub,” Goldberg said. “The husband, Bradley Hart, was taken to the basement and strangled to death with an electrical cord while being forced to lay face down in a pan of water.”

The judge continued, “Not satisfied, and knowing that the couple's 6-month-old was also in the house, Wharton turned the heat off and left the child alone in the house in the dead of winter to freeze to death. Found two days later, the infant barely survived.”

Wharton, 56, currently sits on death row at State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Montgomery County.