{"id":248194,"date":"2026-07-21T02:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T02:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/248194\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T02:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T02:48:08","slug":"will-pennsylvania-release-hundreds-of-murder-convicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/248194\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Pennsylvania release hundreds of murder convicts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(WHTM) \u2013 Mandatory life sentences for second-degree murder are unconstitutional<\/a>, according to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. Earlier this year, the court gave lawmakers 120 days<\/a> to fix the law, and the deadline is approaching quickly.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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“This is a calamity in the making,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R).<\/p>\n

“Having these individuals with the chance to start walking our streets again is a huge problem,” Pittman added. “It’s a dangerous issue.”<\/p>\n

Democrats say Republicans are trying to scare the community into thinking hundreds of convicts will be released onto the street.<\/p>\n

“That’s not going to happen,” says State Rep. Tim Briggs (D), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans twice passed a bill that would swap out the mandatory life sentence with a mandatory minimum<\/a> of 35 years. Attorney General Dave Sunday (R) and the District Attorneys’ Association support the bill.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE \u2013 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)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“I support judicial discretion on these matters,” said Briggs. Take all the facts and make the appropriate decisions. I’m comfortable with that approach.”<\/p>\n

Sean Damon, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Straight Ahead, says it’s “sensible policy to actually give people a second look.”<\/p>\n

“We’re not saying open the doors and let everybody out,” said Damon, who also argues that people can turn their lives around.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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District Attorneys like Dauphin County’s Fran Chardo are focused on families that will never be reunited.<\/p>\n

“The actor didn’t give the victim a second chance,” said Chardo. “They took a life, and there’s no giving that back.”<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WHTM) \u2013 Mandatory life sentences for second-degree murder are unconstitutional, according to Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. Earlier this year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5928,73088,28,30,29,40139,68202],"class_list":["post-248194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-joe-pittman","tag-mandatory-life-sentence","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state-senate","tag-tim-briggs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}