Since the time of the Commonwealth's Quaker founding, the people and the government sought to be humane and merciful. The state Constitution contains sections codifying that merciful virtue. It creates a Board of Pardons which is empower to examine convicts and to recommend that the governor show the convict mercy.
Of course, everyone realizes that if you give a person mercy there is no guarantee that she won't turn around and sting you. Nonetheless, good and reasonable persons value mercy over sacrifice, (as the Bible says).
All that changed with Michael Fisher and his cruel conservative cronies. They cooked up a constitutional amendment which made mercy in the form of executive clemency: a pardon or a commutation of sentence essentially impossible. The amendment was gratuitous vindictiveness. In real life Thomas Ridge was the governor. His "mercy" was limited to his political buddies and big party contributors.
The extremists amendment inserted FIVE changes into the state's Constitution. About 20% (1 in 5) citizens voted in favor of the amendment and it took affect.
Even before the approval of the No-Mercy Amendment, prisoners, lawyers and organizations were opposing it. Influential among the prisoners was Jon Yount of SCI-Huntingdon and Douglas Hollis of SCI-Coal along with the Pennsylvania Lifers Association. Among the groups which opposed the amendment were the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the Graterfriends newsletter and even this website.
But the key had to be lawyers. The courts and the law are a closed club. To have any chance to overturn the amendment, lawyers were needed, powerful lawyers. In Pennsylvania "justice" really depends on who you are.
Fortunately there was Ernie Preate, a former state attorney general. Preate had had some legal troubles and lost his license to practice law, but his short stint in prison had awakened him to the bitter reality of a prisoners plight. Under the aegis of his brother, Robert's, law firm, Levy And Preate of Scranton, and with the assistance of Frank Muraca, Esq., Ernie did research and drafted documents; 35 drafts of the brief, alone.
All the work was done at no charge, "pro bono," as they say in the law. Of course there really was an expense, over $20,000.00! but it was borne by the generous law firm and by the individuals.
William Costopoulos, a well known attorney from Lemoyne outside Harrisburg, argued the case before the seven judges of the Commonwealth Court. As Ernie had predicted from the outset of the case, the court, voted 5 to 2 to strike down the amendment. The majority ruled that each change to the Constitution must be voted on separately, not mixed into a single stew which the voters couldn't discern.
Fisher and his conservative cronies were furious that someone might get mercy. He ranted and raved. He fear-mongered about a single notorious case. Fisher claimed that a man had been given the mercy of commutation and yet had raped and/or killed after this relese. In Fisher's logic, that incident (of dubious validity) was a reason to punish all convicts, even a citizen who had torn pages out of a library book 18 years earlier.
The conservative fanatics immediately took the case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court the question for the state's highest court is a simple one. Is mercy going to continue to be part of the political character of the Commonwealth?
In behalf of ourselves, all decent persons and all convicts and prisoners, we thank:
GOOD WORK!
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