<\/p>\n
Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down<\/a> the state\u2019s mandatory punishment of life without parole for felony murder, ruling that it violates the state\u2019s constitutional prohibition against \u201ccruel punishment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Under the felony murder doctrine<\/a>, all participants in a felony can be charged for murder if a death occurs during the commission of the crime\u2014even if the participant was not present and had no knowledge that a death would occur.\u00a0<\/p>\n More than 1,000 people are serving what is now an \u201cillegal sentence,\u201d Bret Grote, Legal Director of the Abolitionist Law Center (ALC), told The Appeal. More than two-thirds<\/a> are Black.<\/p>\n ALC, along with Amistad Law Project and the Center for Constitutional Rights, brought the case <\/a>on behalf of Derek Lee. In 2014, Lee\u2019s accomplice shot and killed a person during a robbery. Lee was upstairs during the incident; his accomplice and the victim were in the basement. He was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) as required by state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pennsylvania\u2019s highest court ruled that imposing a sentence of life without parole \u201cabsent an assessment of culpability\u201d violates the state constitution\u2019s prohibition against \u201ccruel punishments.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are overjoyed for the hundreds of people in Pennsylvania who will be reunited with their loved ones as a result of this decision,\u201d said Nikki Grant, Co-Executive Director of Amistad Law Project, in a statement. \u201cWe look forward to welcoming beloved community members back home as quickly as possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Governor Josh Shapiro, who filed a brief in support of Lee<\/a>, welcomed the ruling<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have long believed this law is unjust and wrong,\u201d he said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cCommon sense and true justice dictate that we need different penalties for different conduct.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Appeal in Your Inbox<\/p>\n Subscribe to our newsletters for regular updates, analysis and context straight to your email.<\/p>\n The judges paused their ruling for 120 days to allow the state legislature time to enact legislation that complies with the court\u2019s ruling. The day after the ruling came down, elected officials and advocates<\/a> gathered outside City Hall and called on the legislature to act.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis has been quite a while in the works,\u201d State Sen. Sharif Street said at the press conference<\/a>. \u201cThe Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed what many of us already knew. The sentencing regime around second-degree murder, felony-murder, is unconstitutional. It doesn\u2019t make sense. It must be corrected.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Street has introduced Senate Bill 387<\/a>, which provides every person convicted of second-degree murder an opportunity to seek parole after they have been incarcerated for a certain number of years. Felony murder is defined as second-degree murder in Pennsylvania\u2019s criminal code.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is my fifth successive session of introducing this legislation, and the General Assembly now has 120 days to adopt it,\u201d Street said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Grote says that if lawmakers fail to pass legislation, Lee will be resentenced, and another case will have to be brought before the court to determine if the decision applies to the more than 1,000 people already serving LWOP for felony murder. The judges wrote that the \u201conly question before us is the constitutionality of [Lee\u2019s] sentence,\u201d and so they \u201cdecline to address questions of retroactivity.\u201d<\/p>\n Grote says if another case is brought before the court, he\u2019s \u201cconfident\u201d that the judges will rule that the decision in Lee applies retroactively.<\/p>\n \u201cIt cannot be the case that as of this morning, more than 1,000 people are serving unconstitutionally imposed life without parole sentences, but they are not entitled to any legal relief,\u201d Grote told The Appeal on the day of the ruling. \u201cThat is just something that the law and this court and our communities will not tolerate.\u201d<\/p>\n Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have some sort of felony murder law on the books, according to Yale University\u2019s Felony Murder Reporting Project<\/a>. The research hub has investigated thousands of felony murder cases, but says the number of convictions is unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advocates and journalists have exposed numerous cases that illustrate the cruelty of the felony murder doctrine. In 2019, three young people were charged with the murder<\/a> of their friend, Jacob Harris, who was shot and killed by a police officer. The Appeal\u2019s 2023 investigation sparked a movement to free the young people<\/a>, who were sentenced to spend decades in prison. The officer was not charged.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, after public outcry, including a plea from the victim\u2019s daughter, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey commuted the sentence<\/a> of Sonny Burton to life without parole, just days before his scheduled execution. In 1991, Burton and others participated in a robbery of an Auto Zone<\/a> store. After Burton left the store, one of his accomplices shot and killed the victim.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advocates hope that the court\u2019s decision sparks necessary reforms to felony murder laws and is a bellwether for the eventual abolition of LWOP, which opponents refer to as death by incarceration.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2024, more than 56,000 people were serving LWOP sentences, an increase of almost 70 percent from 2003, according to a report by The Sentencing Project.<\/a> More than 5,000 of those people are serving out their sentence in Pennsylvania prisons. Approximately half of all people<\/a> serving LWOP in the United States are concentrated in five states: Pennsylvania, Florida, California, Louisiana, and Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Grote said that the state Supreme Court\u2019s \u201chistoric\u201d decision is \u201ca partial success in our efforts to end death by incarceration for everybody.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a human rights violation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should not be permitted anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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