Pennsylvania Capital-Star: “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Thursday it’s unconstitutional to require mandatory life sentences without parole for people convicted of felony murder.

‘Life without parole imposes the harshest imprisonment sanction permitted under the law ─ imprisonment until death without the opportunity for consideration of release ─ regardless of culpability,’ Chief Justice Debra Todd wrote in the majority opinion. ‘Due to this scheme’s mandatory nature and its unique severity, it poses a great risk of disproportionate punishment.’

Life sentences will still be allowed for second-degree murder on a case-by case-basis, but Todd writes that it violates the state constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment to mandate it in all cases.

The decision was near-unanimous, with only one judge, Justice Kevin Brobson, dissenting in part.

But what the ruling means for the more than 1,000 Pennsylvanians serving life sentences without parole on felony murder charges is still unclear….

Robert Saleem Holbrook, the executive director of the Abolitionist Law Center, which argued the case along with the Amistad Law Project and the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement Thursday, ‘This ruling brings a measure of hope and redemption to over 1,000 people serving death by incarceration in Pennsylvania, however it is also another step in our battle to abolish all death by incarceration sentences in Pennsylvania.'”

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