Pennsylvania Advocates Challenge Felony Murder/LWOP Sentences

When Derek Lee illegally entered a home in Elliott Pennsylvania in 2014, he had no intention of killing anyone. He and co-defendant Paul Durham entered to the house to rob its occupants. While Lee was upstairs, Durham shot and killed a man in the basement. Both men were arrested, went to trial and were found guilty of second-degree, or felony murder which is defined as killing a person during the course of another felony.

In Pennsylvania, that crime calls for a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance for parole. The state ranks second behind only Louisiana in imposing mandatory life without parole for second-degree murder. “Pennsylvania is an extraordinary outlier in imposing life without parole,” said Bret Grote, the legal director of the Abolitionist Law Center. Grote and his organization is representing Lee in front of the Pennsylvania Superior Court seeking to appeal his sentence on the basis that a life without parole sentence for a person who did not actually commit the murder and had no intent to take a life, is cruel and unusual punishment, forbidden by both the state and U.S. constitutions.

Grote said after the session that the court’s questions and comments left him feeling encouraged, but that his organization will not stop until what they call “death by incarceration” is ended. On Tuesday during the hearing, hundreds of people were expected at a rally in Harrisburg protesting the practice. “Our movement is only growing stronger,” Grote said. “Eventually, we are going to strike down this punishment.”

Lee's mother Betty spoke with a local newspaper about her son's appeal and the value he could bring back to his community.

“Who better to come back here and pour into our younger generations who are going in the wrong direction than those that have done it themselves?...People deserve a second chance,” If you show a change and you take that initiative to make that change, you deserve a second chance. And I don’t speak that just for my son. I speak that for all who take that initiative to want to do better with themselves. Give them that chance.”

To read more about Derek Lee's story and the appeal in front of the Pennsylvania Superior Court, visit "Legal advocates seek to overturn no-parole sentencing in felony-murder case" from the Pittsburgh City Paper website.