READING, Pa.- It’s a sentencing shake-up.
The state’s highest court is striking down mandatory life sentences for some people convicted of second-degree murder.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled mandatory life sentences without parole for those convicted of second-degree murder are unconstitutional.
The ruling applies to those convicted of second degree murder, where a defendant is not the person accused of carrying out the murder.
“The people who pulled the trigger, the person who stabbed; those individuals and their convictions and their sentences should not be affected by this ruling,” said Berks County District Attorney John Adams. “It’s the getaway drivers, the accomplices, the lookouts.”
He says the decision was based off of an Allegheny County case, the Commonwealth vs. Derek Lee.
Adams says right now, Pennsylvania is one of only two states that allow an accomplice to be sentenced to life without parole. Louisiana is the other.
“The punishment might be a little out of whack when you have an individual who may have had no knowledge that the actual perpetrator of the crime even had a weapon, yet he could be himself culpable as an accomplice and receive the same penalty,” Adams explained.
The state’s high court has delayed this decision from being imposed for 120 days.
Adams says now there’s somewhat of a holding pattern as many wait to see if the state legislature will act.
“We do fully expect that this decision will be retroactive and will affect all of those individuals who are now incarcerated and serving a life sentence for second degree murder where they themselves were only an accomplice to the crime,” said Adams.
DA Adams says right now, they are in the process of trying to determine how many cases in Berks County this would affect.
According to Adams, he doesn’t believe any pending homicide cases fall into that category, but says it is a complicated issue.