Workers World: “In March 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling in Commonwealth v. Derek Lee struck down automatic mandatory sentences of life without parole (LWOP) for second-degree murder — a murder committed during another felony, even if the defendant did not kill anyone. While determining that the LWOP sentence was unconstitutional, the court stopped short of reviewing the sentences of over 1,100 individuals currently imprisoned in Pennsylvania for second-degree murder.

The court said it put that decision on hold for 120 days so the state’s General Assembly could write new sentencing law, but measures introduced in both the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House failed to pass….

Bret Grote, director of the Abolitionist Law Center (ALC), which represents Coffey and also represented Derek Lee, said, ‘This [the court hearing Coffey’s case] is what those who have been serving this sentence have been waiting for.’ In a press release from ALC, Grote noted that Coffey, who founded the grassroots Human Rights Coalition from prison, will be ‘well able to demonstrate why the decision should apply to people like him who need to be home with us out here in our communities.'”

read the full article