On March 26, 2026, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a mandatory life without parole (LWOP) sentence – death by incarceration (DBI)– for the crime of 2nd degree murder, which is Pennsylvania’s felony murder statute, violates Article 1, Section 13 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which prohibits “cruel punishments.” The questions below address the basics of the ruling, which is, without question, good news for everyone serving 2nd degree sentences—even if the Supreme Court judges didn’t find the nerve to take care of the whole problem in one ruling. That means that timelines and next steps for people now serving 2nd degree sentences aren’t yet clear, and won’t be for a few months.

Does this ruling apply to everyone convicted of 2nd degree?

The answer is yes, the ruling found mandatory 2nd degree sentences to be unconstitutional and in violation of the cruel punishment clause of the PA constitution. But the ruling also made the application of this finding more complicated. On one hand, the ruling technically only applies to one case (that of Derek Lee). On the other hand, the judges very clearly state that they find the entire sentence of mandatory LWOP for 2nd degree/felony murder unconstitutional. So, while all mandatory 2nd degree sentences are unconstitutional regardless of the specific circumstances of anyone’s case, the court decided not to apply that yet to everyone already serving a sentence.

Why isn’t the ruling retroactive?

The Court’s decision to not apply their ruling to everyone already serving the sentence is counterintuitive but also not unusual for the higher courts.Our best guess is that they realized they had to make a bold move, but didn’t want to create immediate major consequences (i.e. resentencings for 1000+ people, spread across 50+ counties around the state) without giving various parts of state government some more time. The rest of the questions below explain what to expect given this unusual situation, and why it means that the remedy for everyone’s 2nd degree sentences will take a while to become clear.

What does the 120-day “stay” mean? Why does it give the legislature time to act?

The stay means the ruling is fully “on pause” for 120 days (starting March 26, 2026)—Derek Lee himself can’t advance his case during these 120 days, and nothing else in the courts will move during this period either. The Court likely included this to provide itself some cover: in the ruling, they write that the legislature is the entity within state government that should be making legislative changes. We’ve also heard chatter about counties and district attorneys not wanting to be forced to do large amounts of resentencings right away. However, the Supreme Court justices also seem aware that the legislature has a good chance of not wanting to address the issue (because it’s a controversial issue; it’s not in the interest of many politicians to take action on it; the legislature is split between Democrats and Republicans; etc). So the 120-day period specifically gives the legislature the opportunity to address the problems that the Court identified with 2nd degree sentencing. After that time, the ruling goes into effect, and the legal consequences of its findings will still stand.

Are there groups supporting a bill during these 120 days?

Yes, Straight Ahead and FAMM have been working with allies in the legislature for a year on a bill that would present the most favorable remedy for both retroactive and prospective 2nd degree cases. The bill, HB 443, has been introduced in the PA House by Rep. Tim Briggs, who is also the chair of the Judiciary Committee in the House, and the plan is for the judiciary committee to vote on (and pass) it on April 9. The bill would offer parole eligibility after 25 years for everyone currently serving LWOP for 2nd degree, and it would include no minimum for everyone who’s sentenced to 2nd degree in the future (to allow judges to go as low as they wanted to for different cases). We’ll need to put significant pressure on them to secure traction on a somewhat favorable bill (and also possibly to fight against very harsh bills that some legislators might craft).

Why does the bill we support have a 25-year minimum for parole eligibility?

This bill came from years of discussions with legislators about what would be the most favorable 2nd degree sentence that policymakers wouldn’t immediately dismiss. Unfortunately, sentences for other categories of homicide are already very high: the current sentence for third degree is 20-40 years, and the juvenile homicide statute for 2nd degree imposes a sentence of 30 to Life for people over 15. The bill we support does adjust juvenile 2nd degree sentence lengths down so they would stay lower than adult 2nd degree sentences, but no one in the legislature thinks the legislature as a whole has any interest in making significant changes to many parts of the homicide sentencing code at this point.

Parole eligibility after 25 years would also immediately provide the chance of freedom to half the people currently serving 2nd degree; within five years, that jumps to two-thirds. Providing that relief to people currently serving the sentence is a major reason why we’re supporting the bill and pushing the legislature as much and as doggedly as we are.

That said, all of our legislative staff and allies in the legislature have been clear that, given the current political state, it will be a major victory to get the General Assembly to pass a bill with a 25-year minimum for parole eligibility. We’ll need to fight hard to let it stand a chance.

What happens if 120 days pass without a bill?

If the legislature fails to pass anything addressing the problems the Court identified with 2nd degree sentences, the Lee case ruling goes into effect. Derek Lee will be able to proceed to a resentencing hearing, and the stage will be set for another court challenge that applies the Lee ruling to everyone currently serving 2nd degree DBI sentences. It’s unfortunate that the Court’s ruling makes that second step necessary (instead of providing a clear remedy for everyone, which they absolutely could have done), but again they seem to want some cover and some more time before they make the larger remedy.

The ruling says it doesn’t apply retroactively; how should I interpret that?

As mentioned above, the judges made the frustrating decision to issue a ruling that clearly applies to anyone serving a 2nd degree mandatory life-without-parole sentence, while also saying that this specific ruling applies only to Derek Lee’s case. Which means that this ruling does not yet apply to anyone whose sentence was already imposed by a judge. That unfortunately means, as already mentioned, that there’s a good chance there will need to be one more step in the process—if the state legislature does not pass legislation outlining what happens to people already serving DBI for felony murder, we will need to put forward another legal challenge in which the judges will have to issue a different ruling that applies what they found in Derek Lee’s case to everyone serving the sentence. Based on prior similar cases, it is very likely that they will eventually rule that it applies retroactively.

Is it possible that the legislature doesn’t address retroactive cases?

Yes, it is possible that the legislature decides to create a new law for 2nd degree felony murder, without addressing how people currently serving the sentence will get resentenced. (In other words, they would address prospective but not retroactive 2nd degree sentences). The legislature can do anything they want–or nothing–in this 120-day period, meaning they could address any parts of 2nd degree. The Court’s ruling allows for that, but the burden would still be on the courts to address retroactivity–or anything else the legislature doesn’t address. Whatever the legislature does, the ruling still applies to the sentence as a whole.

Why are people saying they’re going to be resentenced in court?

This is a reasonable assumption, but some context is needed. If the legislature passes a bill that requires resentencing, or the courts eventually rule that its decision applies retroactively, then everyone serving a mandatory DBI sentence for 2nd degree will need to have individual resentencings in their trial court. If the legislature doesn’t pass a bill requiring resentencing to fix this, another case would need to come before the Supreme Court to hold that the Lee decision applies retroactively and set the stage for individual resentencing proceedings. (As mentioned above, the Lee ruling does say that life without parole is still a possible sentence for 2nd degree murder in Pennsylvania, but it cannot be mandatory.)

Because of the 120-day stay and the fact that the current Lee ruling does not apply to retroactive cases, we can’t say for certain now if everyone will get individual resentencings. That remains fairly likely if the legislature doesn’t act to resentence everyone at once, but we don’t know for sure right now.

What about people serving 2nd degree who are innocent—how will this help them make their case?

Unfortunately, it won’t help them. Even if everyone gets an individual resentencing hearing, that is not a new trial that would allow people to make the case that they should not have been convicted in the first place. Individual resentencings do not mean the conviction has been overturned; the conviction remains legally valid and the trial court must impose a new sentence for the conviction.

Could people still get DBI sentences at resentencings?

Yes. The judges ruled specifically that the unconstitutional part of the sentence was that everyone received a mandatory and extreme DBI sentence even though the barrier to 2nd degree conviction is quite low (viz, knowledge that a felony was taking place + that felony leading to a death). Unfortunately, their opinions repeatedly state that they don’t think people should never under any circumstances be given DBI for felony murder. The ruling also states specifically that whoever resentences Derek Lee can decide to give him a DBI sentence or a sentence with a minimum term. The judges said that people convicted of 2nd degree must receive individualized sentencing that looks at their own culpability, but for now they did not provide more detail about what factors courts must consider as part of the criteria for sentencing.

When should people submit PCRAs? What lawyers should I be looking into?

There is no rush to file PCRAs right now because the ruling is stayed for 120 days and because it does not apply retroactively yet. If the PA Supreme Court does eventually rule that this applies retroactively, people will have 1 year from the date of that ruling to file PCRAs. If that does happen, everyone currently serving a DBI sentence for 2nd degree will be entitled to a lawyer, if they cannot afford one. It likely cannot hurt your case to file a PCRA, but it is not necessary to do so yet.

How will this impact other people with life or long sentences (but not for 2nd degree)?

In a direct legal sense, nothing in the ruling states that it has any direct relevance to people serving non-2nd degree mandatory sentences. The case and the ruling were specifically about 2nd degree, and the courts generally only rule on the immediate thing before them.

In a larger sense, though, a positive outcome for people serving 2nd degree will definitely help make the case that all DBI sentences are unjust and excessive. Legally speaking, the ruling was the first major reinterpretation of the cruel punishment clause in PA’s Constitution, and it turned on the notion that DBI sentences were extraordinarily serious, and that such maximal penalties should only be used in rare circumstances. Just a few years ago, the Supreme Court had no interest in these arguments, nor in addressing 2nd degree sentences at all. Continual advocacy and legal and legislative challenges got us to this ruling, which will likely allow 1000+ lifers a chance to come home. We must keep up this pressure, energy, and dedication, and continue fighting for everyone serving long sentences to have more fair and just ways of finding freedom.

Action Steps for Loved Ones and Any Supporter on the Outside

We’ll be keeping steady pressure on the legislature and decision-makers until this situation is resolved and everyone has a chance to come home. We’ll need a lot of help, though, more than we have now; please ask anyone you know to help support us and our allies at bit.ly/felonymurderaction