Defense attorneys handling the cases of juvenile lifers who must be resentenced following new rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court are frustrated by a lack of guidance being provided to prosecutors and judges handling the cases.
In Allegheny County in recent weeks, one judge gave a defendant before him 13 to 26 years for first-degree murder.
Another judge gave a defendant 20 years to life for second-degree murder.
The Allegheny County district attorney’s office argues that under the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in Commonwealth v. Batts, a defendant must receive a maximum sentence of life in prison for either first- or second-degree murder.
But others said the case is being misinterpreted. They hope that another appeal to the state Supreme Court in the Batts case, to be argued Dec. 7 in Harrisburg, will provide clarity.
“The law is far from clear,” defense attorney Chris Rand Eyster said. “Batts says a term of years to life is constitutional, but I don’t think it binds the court to impose that.”
“I don’t know what sentencing scheme we’re working under,” Steve Townsend said. “To me, that’s an equal protection issue.”
Both Mr. Eyster and Mr. Townsend have represented two of the four defendants from Allegheny County to fall under the new sentencing requirements stemming from the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama finding that a mandatory life without parole sentence for juveniles is unconstitutional. That ruling became retroactive in January under another case, Montgomery v. Louisiana.
Mr. Townsend represents eeeeeee Jeffrey Cristina, who was resentenced in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court in August by Judge Anthony M. Mariani to 20 years to a maximum term of life in prison for second-degree murder.
Cristina, who was 17 at the time of his conviction in 1976, has been a model prisoner over the 40 years he has served. At his resentencing, Judge Mariani made it clear he believed Cristina had been in prison too long and wanted to release him as quickly as possible.
Still, he said he was bound by the Batts decision, and so Cristina’s case had to go through the state’s parole process.
On Nov. 16, parole was granted. But Cristina remains at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset, awaiting release.
Mr. Townsend doesn’t fault the parole process for the three additional months his client has been in.
“That was pretty quick — especially on cases where they lack guidance, as well,” he said. “You don't want [inmates] to fail. I’d rather they sit in jail a month than get released and fail because they don’t know how to handle themselves.”
But Mr. Townsend does fault the justice system for failing to provide prosecutors and judges with guidance for how to handle the resentencing hearings for the state’s more than 500 juvenile lifers.
“They haven’t been told, ‘Hey, it has to be done this way,’ ” he said. “What I don’t understand is how we have three different judges in the district applying three different sets of rules.
“To me, that’s unfair.”
Mr. Townsend is referring to his client’s case, along with that of Mr. Eyster’s client, Regis Seskey. And a third, Ricky Lee Olds.
Seskey, who was 17 when he shot and killed a man over a $100 drug debt in 1992, was resentenced by Common Pleas Judge Joseph K. Williams III on Nov. 16.
Judge Williams sentenced Seskey, who has been in prison about 24 years, to serve 13 to 26 years in prison. Because Judge Williams didn’t set Seskey’s maximum term at life in prison, the DA’s office has filed a notice of appeal.
That means that, even though Seskey is eligible for parole, he will not be considered until the appeal process has concluded.
“The way they’re acting, to try to keep these guys in by filing appeals, violates the spirit of Miller v. Alabama,” Mr. Eyster said. “These appeals are going to go on forever.
“Does that benefit the system?”
Mr. Eyster filed a motion last week for relief from prosecutorial vindictiveness.
In it, he said the commonwealth offered a sentence of 35 years to life for Seskey.
But when the defense refused to take it, Mr. Eyster said Deputy District Attorney Ronald Wabby Jr. told him his office would appeal “and try to keep the defendant in jail indefinitely,” he wrote. “Such conduct is, at a minimum, unreasonable, and it undermines the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
But Mike Manko, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said the prosecution must act consistently in these cases, including by seeking a maximum term of life in prison.
“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has given clear direction to district attorney offices, the court and the parole board on how to handle the resentencing of juveniles serving life without parole,” he said. “In each of the four resentencings we have been involved in, our office has followed that direction and we are asking the court to do the same.”
Richard Long, the executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, agreed that Batts requires a maximum life term.
“We think that’s settled in the case and is the law in Pennsylvania.”
But Marc Bookman, who handled the resentencing for second-degree murder last week of Ricky Lee Olds, is frustrated by the actions of the Allegheny County DA’s office.
His client, who got 20 years to life last Monday for a case from 1979, was given bond by Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman so that he would be immediately released — and not have to await the parole process.
But the prosecution challenged the judge’s decision — arguing that a person sentenced to life in prison cannot receive bond pending appeal — and Judge Cashman reversed course and vacated his order.
That means that Mr. Olds, who was 14 at the time of the crime for which he was convicted of second-degree murder, must now wait for parole — a process likely to take at least three months.
“Their phony claims that everyone needs to be treated the same is exactly opposite what the U.S. Supreme Court says,” Mr. Bookman said “They are ignoring the mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court that calls for individualized sentences.”
Mr. Townsend, too, is frustrated by the DA office’s finding that a maximum sentence of life is required even in resentencing.
“You have to look at these cases individually, and they’re not,” he said. “They're looking at everyone the same.”
Leo Dunn, chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, said that of the approximately 515 juvenile lifers across Pennsylvania, only 24 of them been resentenced as of Nov. 21.
Of those, he said, eight of them have already been interviewed by the parole board, and seven have been granted release.
“We have no backlog,” Mr. Dunn said. “The courts are giving them to us slowly enough that we can handle them.”
The parole process does not begin until the board receives the resentencing order from the county judge handling the case, Mr. Dunn said.
He estimated that once the interviews by the parole board are conducted, inmates receive a decision regarding release within a month.
“It’s been working very smoothly so far,” he said.
However, if the prosecution appeals a resentence, the parole process is put on hold, Mr. Dunn said. Of the 24 cases he referenced, only two involved a prison term that did not have a maximum sentence of life.
In Cristina’s case, Mr. Townsend was not thrilled about his client having a maximum prison term of life, and therefore never being free from parole. But he also knew that any other sentence could have meant an appeal and Cristina remaining in prison for years longer while the appellate process played itself out.
“I’d much rather have him out in three or four months rather than wait for the appeals court, two or three years from now,” Mr. Townsend said.
Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter: @PaulaReedWard.
First Published: November 28, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
