Philadelphia stands out for its approach for revisiting felony murder in Pa.

August 17, 2026

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: “In two GOP-led meetings last week, county district attorneys across the state repeatedly spoke about the oncoming ‘chaos’ created by the state legislature’s failure to create a sentencing structure for felony murder. The discussions took place in the wake of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that mandatory life sentences were unconstitutional….

Krasner and other district attorneys pointed to another decade-old resentencing effort for juveniles automatically sentenced to life. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling reversing automatic life sentences for juveniles impacted less than 500 people in Pennsylvania prisons.

‘I think we have a clear example with the way juvenile lifer cases were handled. That individualized resentencing was carefully done with as much record and as much expert testimony as it necessary,’ Krasner told the Capital-Star. ‘It worked. And I think the parole board also worked.’

One of them was Robert Saleem Holbrook. Krasner held up Holbrook, now the executive director of the Abolitionist Law Center, as an example of someone who returned to everyday life after decades in prison and became a part of the community.”

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Photo: Commonwealth Media Services