From State Court Report:
A recent Pennsylvania decision barring mandatory life without parole for felony murder is part of an accelerating trend toward broad state constitutional protections for people in the criminal justice system.
By Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot , Nancy Watzman
Published: April 1, 2026
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a groundbreaking decision last week: It became the first state high court to hold that mandatory life without parole was an unconstitutional sentence for people convicted of “felony murder” — a doctrine under which a person may be prosecuted for murder for any death that occurs during the commission of a separate felony.
The ruling, Commonwealth v. Lee, is a long-awaited “next step” toward state courts providing a “meaningful check on extreme criminal punishments” and sentencing policy that “is proportionate to personal culpability and justified by a legitimate purpose,” Kyle C. Barry, director of the State Law Research Initiative, has previously written.
A few weeks after the 2024 oral arguments in Lee, State Law Research Initiative, the Brennan Center, and the Rutgers Law Review gathered almost two dozen scholars, practitioners, and state supreme court justices to discuss the growing legal movement to use state constitutions to challenge excessive criminal punishments, inhumane prison conditions, and other injustices in the criminal legal system. That day-long discussion highlights the promise of state constitutions to better protect people in the criminal justice system — a promise that has become closer to realization with the decision in Lee. Continue reading >>>
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