Commonwealth v. Romanelli

Anthony Romanelli was initially sentenced to mandatory life without parole under the felony murder doctrine for a homicide that took place when he was 17 years old. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama, holding mandatory life without parole sentences unconstitutional when imposed on juveniles, Mr. Romanelli was re-sentenced to discretionary life without parole.

Juvenile Law Center and the Defender Association of Philadelphia filed an appeal in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on behalf of Mr. Romanelli. Our brief argued that both Miller and Montgomery establish a presumption against imposing life without parole sentences on juveniles, who are categorically less culpable than adults. We further argued that imposing a life without parole sentence on a juvenile convicted of felony murder is unconstitutional because it attributes the same level of culpability and foreseeability to each participant in the crime regardless of their level of participation or neurological development.

Pending the decision in Romanelli, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided Commonwealth v. Batts, holding that Miller and Montgomery establish a presumption against sentencing a juvenile to life without parole and requiring that the Commonwealth must rebut that presumption with evidence establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that the individual juvenile is permanently incorrigible. Consequently, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania vacated Romanelli’s sentence and remanded the case to the trial court for resentencing, holding that the trial court failed to apply the “presumption against the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence or require the Commonwealth to rebut that presumption with evidence establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that Romanelli is ‘permanently incorrigible’ and ‘unable to be rehabilitated.’”