The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected a petition by two death row inmates to find the state’s death penalty unconstitutional, a request that some advocates had hoped would lead to an historic ruling, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. In its one-page order, the court left the door open for individual review of death penalty cases. “Discrete review of properly presented claims will proceed in the individual cases, subject to the jurisdictional limits of the post-conviction courts,” the ruling said. The case centered on a petition filed by federal defenders in 2018 on behalf of two inmates, Jermont Cox and Kevin Marinelli, but had the potential to affect the 130 others on death row.
Shawn Nolan of the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, which represents Cox and Marinelli, said, “We will continue to litigate the unconstitutionality of Pennsylvania’s capital punishment system in individual cases. There is overwhelming evidence that Pennsylvania’s death penalty system is broken — unfair, inaccurate, and unlawful under the constitution of the commonwealth.” The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office also contended that the death penalty, as applied, has been unreliable and is thus unconstitutional. The office said 112 of 155 death penalty sentences over 40 years through 2017 were overturned, mostly because the defendants had ineffective counsel. District Attorney Larry Krasner, who took office in January 2018, campaigned on “never” seeking the death penalty. His office has agreed or signaled a willingness to vacate the death penalty for more than one-third of the 45 Philadelphia inmates on death row. Krasner said, “I am disappointed that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to address a constitutional issue that is literally a matter of life and death.”