{"id":256816,"date":"2026-08-01T00:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T00:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256816\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T00:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T00:48:08","slug":"pa-supreme-court-denies-petition-to-extend-second-degree-murder-sentencing-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256816\/","title":{"rendered":"PA Supreme Court denies petition to extend second-degree murder sentencing deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied a petition that would&#8217;ve given state lawmakers more time to pass new sentencing guidelines for second-degree murder cases.<\/p>\n<p>The petition was filed July 23, a day before the July 24 deadline. The House and Senate failed to reach an agreement after having 120 days to pass new guidelines. <\/p>\n<p>PREVIOUS COVERAGE | <a href=\"https:\/\/local21news.com\/news\/local\/lawmakers-miss-deadline-to-pass-second-degree-murder-sentencing-reforms-felony-charge-conviction-pa-pennsylvania-supreme-court-democrats-republican-house-senate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pennsylvania lawmakers miss deadline to pass second-degree murder sentencing reforms<\/a><\/p>\n<p>With the deadline passed, people convicted of second-degree murder can now appeal their sentences.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Kevin Dougherty filed a dissenting opinion, arguing the court should&#8217;ve given legislators an additional 120 days to reach a decision. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Certainly, a holistic, state-wide legislative response to our groundbreaking decision would be preferable to the inevitable uncertainties and disparities which would attend unlegislated, ad hoc determinations by individual jurists across the Commonwealth,&#8221; Dougherty wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Dougherty said he believed the General Assembly was more focused on the state budget, and then its summer recess further delayed their decision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied a petition that would&#8217;ve given state lawmakers more time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-256816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256816","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=256816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}