[ad_1]
The state Supreme Court on Friday said it will take up a Pittsburgh case challenging the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for second-degree, or felony, murder.
It is the first time Pennsylvania’s highest court will consider the issue — looking at it through the lens of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
The defendant in the case, Derek Lee, 36, was found guilty of second-degree murder Sept. 26, 2016, in the shooting death of Leonard Butler.
On Oct. 14, 2014, Lee and a co-defendant, Paul Durham, entered Butler’s home in the Elliot section of Pittsburgh carrying guns.
Butler’s girlfriend testified at trial that Lee ordered the couple to the basement and demanded money. Butler gave Lee his watch, and Lee went upstairs while Durham and Butler remained in the basement.
The girlfriend testified Butler attempted to lunge at Durham, and Durham shot him.
Lee was not in the room at the time.
Both men were convicted in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court of second-degree murder and given the mandatory penalty of life in prison without parole.
Lee challenged his conviction. In his appeal, Lee’s attorneys wrote, “There was no dispute that Mr. Lee did not cause Mr. Butler’s death, nor was there any testimony indicating that Mr. Lee intended to kill Butler.”
Prosecutors with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office argued mandatory life without parole for second-degree murder serves as a deterrent. They also said defendants who are convicted can seek clemency or commutation.
In June, a three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court denied his appeal. The panel said in a 10-page opinion it was bound by the court’s own precedent in an earlier decision.
Lee filed a petition with the state Supreme Court in July.
On Friday, the court said it would hear the issue.
“Today’s ruling gives hope to the more than 1,100 people serving this sentence in Pennsylvania and their family members that the Supreme Court will recognize their right to redemption and offer them the opportunity to come home someday,” said Bret Grote, the legal director of the Abolitionist Law Center, which is representing Lee.
Life without parole sometimes is called “death by incarceration.”
According to the petition seeking state Supreme Court review, Pennsylvania is one of only two states — the other is Louisiana — that allow mandatory life without parole for felony murder even where there was no intent to kill.
“Pennsylvania is an extreme outlier both nationally and globally in sentencing people to die in prison, particularly when convicted of felony-murder,” they wrote.
The petition asserts the punishment is excessive in relation to every goal of sentencing, fails to promote public safety and disproportionately impacts Black people.
According to the court filing, more than 70% of people sentenced to life without parole for second-degree murder are Black.
“Mr. Lee’s petition presents an opportunity to remedy the injustice wrought by his permanent exclusion from society,” his attorneys wrote.
As part of Lee’s request to the state Supreme Court to consider his case, two former Pennsylvania Department of Corrections secretaries filed their own brief in support.
They wrote that, in their experience, “life without parole sentences for people convicted of felony murders make little sense.”
The brief, filed by John Wetzel, who served as secretary from 2011 to 2021, and George Little, who was acting secretary from 2021 to 2023, was critical of the sentence for felony murder from a practical and financial standpoint.
“(K)eeping people — including often people convicted at very young ages — incarcerated for their entire lives imposes enormous and unnecessary costs on the correctional system,” they wrote. “It does this without much corresponding benefit, either, as life-sentenced people do not need to be permanently incarcerated to serve public safety.”
They said, as prisoners age, they are less likely to commit new crimes.
In addition, they said, such lengthy sentences waste prison resources that could be used for rehabilitation needs.
Grote said their petition did not ask for a specific remedy but instead seeks only to have life without parole for felony murder deemed unconstitutional.
However, he suggested there are likely three possibilities:
• The court could establish a minimum number of years before a person becomes eligible for parole.
The former corrections secretaries noted making those convicted of second-degree murder eligible for parole does not guarantee they will receive parole. “If they pose a public safety danger, they will not,” they wrote.
• It could remand the cases back to Common Pleas Court to resentence the defendants — like what happened for juvenile lifers after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those mandatory penalties in 2012.
• Or, Grote said, the court could strike down the sentence, leaving the state Legislature to amend the parole code and allow for parole eligibility for felony murder.
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Lee and argued the Superior Court appeal, did not return a request for comment.
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2019 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of “Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
[ad_2]
Source_link
