WHP580/iHeartRadio: “Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for people convicted of second-degree murder are unconstitutional — a landmark decision that could reshape the futures of more than 1,000 people currently locked away for life.

The ruling, handed down Thursday (March 26), stems from the case of Derek Lee, a 36-year-old Allegheny County man convicted of second-degree murder in a deadly 2014 Pittsburgh home invasion. According to Spotlight PA, Lee and an accomplice forced victims into a basement during an armed robbery, where Lee pistol-whipped one of them before his co-defendant, Paul Durham, shot and killed 44-year-old Leonard Butler during a struggle over a gun. A jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder but acquitted him of first-degree murder.

Under Pennsylvania law, anyone convicted of second-degree murder — a charge that applies when a person takes part in a felony that leads to another person’s death — automatically received a life sentence with no chance of parole. That is now over.

As reported by WHYY, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Todd wrote in the majority opinion that the mandatory sentencing scheme ‘fails to assess individual culpability regarding the intent to kill, and mandates the same punishment regardless of that culpability.’ She wrote that the law failed to distinguish ‘between the lookout, and the killer who pulls the trigger.’

‘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,’ Todd wrote.”

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