Bolts: “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last week that it’s unconstitutional to automatically sentence someone to life in prison without the possibility for parole for a killing they didn’t participate in or personally commit.

The ruling cites protections against ‘cruel punishments’ in Pennsylvania’s state constitution in order to rein in the state’s especially harsh sentences for so-called felony murder—a charge that allows officials to prosecute someone for murder because of their involvement in a crime that led to a death, even if they didn’t cause it.

The decision could offer a pathway out of prison for more than 1,000 people convicted of felony murder; under Pennsylvania law, they were automatically condemned to what advocates for sentencing reform have called ‘death by incarceration.’

Derek Lee, who challenged his life without parole sentence a decade ago and whose appeal resulted in the court’s decision, says that prayers of thanks began to run through his mind when he first heard news of the ruling last week.

‘I went to the cell and praised God, prayed, shed some tears and turned on some gospel music, worshiped not caring who heard,’ he told Bolts.

Lee was convicted of felony murder, which is classified as second-degree murder in Pennsylvania, for his participation in a 2014 burglary in which his accomplice fatally shot the homeowner during a struggle; Lee, who was 29 at the time, wasn’t in the room when the shooting happened. Pennsylvania law mandates life without parole for second-degree murder, one one of only two states to do so alongside Louisiana.

Attorneys from the Abolitionist Law Center, an organization that had already mounted several challenges to life without parole in the state, eventually assisted Lee with his appeals, arguing that his sentence violates the state constitution’s prohibition of ‘cruel punishments.'”

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