The state appeals court should strike down a Pennsylvania law mandating life-without-parole sentences for second-degree murder. If the court fails to do it, the Pennsylvania General Assembly should scrap this draconian law.
There is ample precedent for judicial review of a law that tests the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court has eliminated, on constitutional grounds, other unduly harsh sentencing laws, such as mandatory life sentences for juveniles, after state legislatures failed to act on them.
Pennsylvania’s felony murder law is an outlier. Only a handful of other states, including Louisiana, impose similar sentences. It’s cruel because it allows no judicial discretion in light of circumstances, imposing automatic life sentences, with no possibility of parole, on people who did not kill anyone or intend to, or even know a weapon was present, if they participated in a crime that resulted in a murder. The law does not distinguish between accomplices and principals. It is a brutal example of one-size-fits-all justice.
