The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for people convicted of felony murder violate the state constitution.
“We determine that a mandatory life without parole sentence for all felony murder convictions, absent an assessment of culpability, is inconsistent with the protections bestowed upon our citizens under the ‘cruel punishments’ clause of our Commonwealth’s organic charter,” Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd wrote for the majority.
Under Pennsylvania law, a person may be convicted of second degree murder if a death occurs while they were involved in a robbery, rape, kidnapping, or other enumerated felony—even if they did not kill or intend to kill anyone.
And the law requires that every person convicted of second degree murder—whether they’re the actual killer or just the getaway driver—must be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Many states have felony murder laws, but the court found that only four other states—Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina—have mandatory life-without-parole sentences, without exceptions, for felony murder.
A Longstanding Notion of Justice
Derek Lee was one of two men involved in a 2014 armed robbery in Allegheny County. The evidence showed he was upstairs when the other man shot and killed the victim during a scuffle in the basement. Both men were convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to die in prison.
Mr. Lee challenged his sentence under both the state and federal constitutions.
In a landmark ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held for the first time that the state constitution provides greater protections to its citizens than those recognized under the Eighth Amendment.
The state constitution protects citizens from disproportionate punishments. The principle that the punishment should fit the crime arises from the “longstanding notion of justice that ‘punishment for [a] crime should be graduated and proportioned to both the offender and the offense.’”
In other words, the court wrote, “individuals who have lessened culpability are less deserving of the most severe punishments.” But the state’s mandatory life-without-parole sentencing scheme fails to distinguish between “the lookout and the killer who pulls the trigger.”
Instead, everyone convicted of felony murder gets the same life-without-parole sentence—the “harshest imprisonment sanction permitted under the law,” regardless of their culpability and characteristics. That “runs afoul of notions of individualized sentencing for defendants facing the second most severe punishment after death,” the court wrote.
Accordingly, the court ruled that Pennsylvania’s felony murder statute violates the state constitutional prohibition against cruel punishments because it “poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.”
A Thoughtful, Just Process
Mr. Lee’s case was remanded for the sentencing court to consider his individual culpability before resentencing him to life without parole or to life with parole.
The court did not expressly decide whether its ruling applies retroactively to the more than 1,000 people currently serving life without parole for second degree murder in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who advocated for striking down mandatory life without parole for felony murder, called on lawmakers to “come up with a thoughtful, just process to address those who are serving life sentences for second degree murder.”
State Sen. Sharif Street (D., Philadelphia) sponsored a bipartisan bill that would allow parole consideration for people convicted of felony murder after 25 years. The bill is pending in the state Senate.
“I’ve been advocating that we do this because the result of our legal system is there are people who were not the actual shooter who end up serving life in prison when the actual shooter did not,” Mr. Street told Spotlight PA. “It’s inconsistent with people’s understanding of how justice should work.”