On the evening of Jan. 22, 2012, John Morales tried to sell a bag of weed to Donald Clark in the parking lot of Rutter’s gas station in Waynesboro. Little did John know that Clark was a confidential informant working for the local police. Donald insisted that they do the transaction in the parking lot of a local church, claiming he didn’t know where the gas station was. In the church was a nursery. At the subsequent trial after John was busted, the district attorney demanded a mandatory two-year sentence under the Drug Free School Zone Act because of the nursery which triggered the enhancements. This law applies regardless of whether there was any notice that the nursery was considered to be a school and within a school zone, regardless of whether schools were in session. The law also includes transactions within 1,000 feet of bus routes regardless of whether the buses are running or if school is in session.
Last week Rep. Todd Stephens introduced HB 741, which seeks to reinstate dozens of mandatory sentences that were struck down by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2015 in Commonwealth v. Hopkins, 632 Pa. 36 (2015), 117 A3rd 247 (2015). Their decision stated that a mandatory sentence handed down by a judge intruded on the province of the jury who is the sole fact finder and is thus unconstitutional. This decision follows a long line of federal cases triggered by the Alleyne v. United States, 133 S.Ct. 2151 (2013), decision. This 5-4 majority decision held that any fact that triggers any mandatory minimum sentence is an “element” of the crime and must be proven to a jury not a judge by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Before Alleyne, a judge who found that certain facts had been established by the lower “preponderance of the evidence” standard was required to impose any mandatory sentence triggered by those facts. Thus all drug mandatory sentences including the school zone enhancements are now unconstitutional.
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