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HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has struck down mandatory life sentences for people convicted of felony murder, a watershed moment in the history of the state’s centuries-old justice system that will lead to one of the largest resentencing undertakings in United States history.
“We determine that a mandatory life without parole sentence for all felony murder convictions, absent an assessment of culpability, is inconsistent with the protections bestowed upon our citizens under the ‘cruel punishments’ clause of our Commonwealth’s organic charter,” wrote Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd for the majority.
The outcome could fundamentally change the lives of more than 1,000 people currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for, in some cases, murders they did not commit.
In Pennsylvania, someone can be convicted of felony murder, also called second-degree murder, even when they did not end a life.
The most illustrative example is a getaway driver in a fatal robbery, who manned the wheel while an accomplice shot the clerk. Others are guilty of causing an injury that later killed someone.
Pennsylvania imposes mandatory life sentences on people found guilty of second-degree murder, the same punishment as those who knowingly plotted and carried out a killing. Though dozens of states have felony murder charges on the books, only Pennsylvania and Louisiana require a life sentence.
The underlying case centers on 36-year-old Allegheny County man Derek Lee. In 2014, Lee and an accomplice committed an armed robbery, forcing victims Leonard Butler and Tina Chapple into their basement. Lee pistol-whipped and robbed Butler, but left the basement before his co-defendant shot the man during a scuffle.
At oral arguments in October, state Supreme Court justices seemed primed to overrule the sentencing scheme for Lee, if not the hundreds like him, spending much of the lengthy arguments discussing the logistics.
“Individuals are being punished for a crime for which no level of [criminal intent] has been established, which is truly contrary to anything I can count as fair in a sentencing scheme,” Justice Christine Donohue told Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Kevin McCarthy, who argued on behalf of the commonwealth.
More than a dozen interested parties filed amicus briefs in support of Lee’s position, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, who argued mandatory life in prison could be an extremely harsh outcome for a person who did not commit a murder.
The Office of the Attorney General filed a brief agreeing with Shapiro’s position, but arguing that the courts should not be used as a method to compel action from the legislature.
The fallout of the court’s decision will be monumental. It involves more than double the number of individuals resentenced after the U.S. Supreme Court determined life without the possibility of parole sentences are unconstitutional for those convicted as children. Those rulings affected more than 500 people in Pennsylvania.
This story will be updated.
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