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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | October 20, 2015 10:10 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator John C. Rafferty, Jr. |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Restoring Mandatory Minimum Sentences |
| In the near future, I will be introducing legislation to reinstitute and reaffirm the mandatory minimum sentences currently in Pennsylvania statutes. As many of you already know, in a recent decision the Pennsylvania Supreme Court applied to Pennsylvania sentencing statues the US Supreme Court decision in Alleyne v. United States, which requires that the fact-finder must decide beyond a reasonable doubt that a fact exists which gives rise to a mandatory minimum sentence. The result of this decision is that many of the mandatory sentencing provisions that were duly enacted into law have been rendered void. Mandatory minimum sentences serve a crucial and critical role in protecting our most vulnerable citizens and serving as a deterrent to violent crime. The mandatory sentences currently in our statutes were created by past legislatures because they felt that both certain specific offenders and crimes should and must be treated differently. Reasonable debate about mandatory minimum sentences has been and will continue to be ongoing, however the final determination for the future of mandatory minimum sentences is within the purview of the legislature. My bill is rather simple, it deletes the language the court found to be problematic and replaces it with language requiring the fact-finder, in most cases the jury to make the finding beyond a reasonable doubt. The net effect of my bill would be to restore the original legislative intent of these statutes. Please consider cosponsoring this important legislation. |