(WHTM) – Mandatory life sentences for second-degree murder are unconstitutional, according to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. Earlier this year, the court gave lawmakers 120 days to fix the law, and the deadline is approaching quickly.
Both the State House and State Senate are gone until September, but the deadline to address the cases of 1,200 inmates is this Friday. Many of the cases involve a getaway driver or someone present at the murder who did not directly cause the death.
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“This is a calamity in the making,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R).
“Having these individuals with the chance to start walking our streets again is a huge problem,” Pittman added. “It’s a dangerous issue.”
Democrats say Republicans are trying to scare the community into thinking hundreds of convicts will be released onto the street.
“That’s not going to happen,” says State Rep. Tim Briggs (D), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Senate Republicans twice passed a bill that would swap out the mandatory life sentence with a mandatory minimum of 35 years. Attorney General Dave Sunday (R) and the District Attorneys’ Association support the bill.
“The House Democrats are paralyzed on this issue, and they need to act, and the governor needs to step forward on it quickly,” emphasized Pittman.
FILE – This June 1, 2018, file photo, shows a housing unit in the west section of the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix in Collegeville, Pa. The first phase of transferring more than 2,500 inmates from the 89-year-old state prison at Graterford to the long-delayed $400 million SCI Phoenix prison began Wednesday, July 11, 2018, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, which plans to bus hundreds of inmates a day to the new prison facility about a mile down the road until all are relocated. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma, File)
Briggs has a bill with a 50-year maximum sentence for second-degree murder, but no mandatory minimum. He says the resentencing process, with or without a law, will play out county by county, case by case, and that the judicial system will get it right.
“I support judicial discretion on these matters,” said Briggs. Take all the facts and make the appropriate decisions. I’m comfortable with that approach.”
Sean Damon, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Straight Ahead, says it’s “sensible policy to actually give people a second look.”
“We’re not saying open the doors and let everybody out,” said Damon, who also argues that people can turn their lives around.
“People have the capacity to change, and we ought to be taking a second look to see if that’s happened,” Damon added. “And if it has happened, we ought to have a path for people to rejoin the community and to be reunited with their families.”
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District Attorneys like Dauphin County’s Fran Chardo are focused on families that will never be reunited.
“The actor didn’t give the victim a second chance,” said Chardo. “They took a life, and there’s no giving that back.”
“I know a lot of folks thought they would never have to deal with these stories, these memories again, but they’re going to have to make sure that justice is met,” added Briggs.
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