The Pennsylvania Supreme Court may hear three appeals from 18, 19, and 20 year olds with life sentences in the newest development in the national push for softer sentencing for young adults, media reported Thursday.
Illinois, Connecticut, and now Pennsylvania have all pursued hearings for lifers who were younger than 25 when they committed their crimes, alleging that recent research in brain development proves young adults shouldn’t be held as culpable for crimes as more mature adults, Philly.com reported Thursday.
Some states are looking into creating young-adult courts — intermediaries between juvenile and traditional courts which are exempt from federal mandatory minimum sentences — to allow them to match penalties with crimes on a case-by-case basis. California is the only state that has implemented one.
Steven Drake was among a group of 11 teens who killed a man in 1971. He was 23 days past 18 at the time and the only legal adult in the group, causing him to serve years more time in prison.
Charmaine Pfender, who filed a Pennsylvania appeal in June, was 18 when she shot and killed a man who she said was attempting to rape her.
Activists argue that 18 shouldn’t be a hard legal line based on research from Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist specializing in brain development, showing that brain development influencing criminal actions continues into the 20s.
Hard lines between adolescence and adulthood are “at odds with developmental science,” Steinberg’s report reads.
“We have lots of age boundaries we draw in society that don’t make any sense from a scientific point of view,” Steinberg told Philly.com. “Why on earth would we let people drive when they’re 16, but not see sexy movies until they’re 17? Why do we have different ages for purchasing tobacco and purchasing alcohol, if we believe those are both harmful things for young people?”
If appeals in Pennsylvania and other states are successful, it could mean halving states’ populations of life-term inmates. More than half of Pennsylvania’s lifers were sentenced for crimes committed before 25, according to Philly.com. Inmates would be considered for sentence reductions on a case-by-case basis.
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