By Joseph A. Slobodzian
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — The state and inmate advocates have challenged a federal judge’s ruling last month that Pennsylvania should not apply its tougher 1997 pardon standards to inmates sentenced to life terms before that year.
Notices of appeal were filed Friday and Monday in federal court in Harrisburg by state officials and the Pennsylvania Prison Society in challenging the June 11 decision of U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo of the Middle District of Pennsylvania before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Caputo’s ruling revived a 12-year-old lawsuit challenging a 1997 change that toughened the voting rules of the state Board of Pardons. Inmate advocates appealed the ruling because Caputo did not order officials to reinstate pre-1997 rules for the affected lifers.
In Pennsylvania, a life sentence carries no possibility of parole. The Board of Pardons, which may recommend that the governor should commute a life term, is the only avenue of release for lifers.
Before 1997, a majority vote of the five-member board was needed to recommend commutation. Under a change that Gov. Tom Ridge promoted with a series of tough-on-crime laws, the board’s recommendation now must be unanimous.
The referendum question also changed the board’s membership by replacing the seat designated for a lawyer with one for a crime victim.
Caputo let that change stand. But he wrote that the other 1997 changes were an unconstitutional after-the-fact punishment for inmates convicted and sentenced under the old rules.
Before 1997, about 300 life inmates had their sentences commuted; just three have had commutations since. Officials of the prison society say about 3,000 of Pennsylvania’s 4,633 lifers were sentenced for pre-1997 offenses.
Caputo granted the society the right to represent the lifers’ interests. The society dates to 1787 and was granted “official visitor” status at any state prison by the legislature.
The society’s notice of appeal, filed by Stephen A. Whinston, says it will challenge Caputo’s decision not to order the state to immediately stop using the post-1997 rules in the cases of inmates sentenced before then, as well as his ruling denying three individual inmates from joining the lawsuit.
The state’s brief, filed by Chief Deputy Attorney General Amy Zapp, argues that the 1997 referendum question was approved by 61 percent of voters.
Moreover, Zapp wrote, a pardon is the prerogative of the executive branch of government. It is not part of sentencing and the judicial process.
For that reason, Zapp wrote, the allegation of “after-the-fact punishment” does not apply: “Failure to obtain a pardon or commutation does not mean that a criminal defendant is serving a greater sentence.”
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