Pa. life inmates seek clemency after US judge’s decision that could relax rule for thousands

Pa. lifers seeking clemency in wake of US ruling

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Tyrone Werts earned a college degree, counseled at-risk teenagers, organized an anti-crime summit, sold Girl Scout cookies, and once prevented the rape of a teacher — all while serving a life sentence for second-degree murder and robbery.

Regarded as a model prisoner for nearly 35 years, Werts, 57, will appear before the state Board of Pardons on Thursday to ask for a commutation of his sentence. He and another inmate, William Fultz, also 57, are the first lifers to go before the board since a federal judge ruled in June that thousands of Pennsylvania inmates sentenced to life should have an easier path toward clemency.

If history is their only guide, Werts and Fultz face incredibly steep odds. Only three life sentences have been commuted since 1997, when Pennsylvania voters — outraged over a killing at the hands of a commuted inmate — amended the state constitution to tighten commutation standards for lifers. Clemency for lifers hasn’t been common in Pennsylvania since the 1970s, when then-Gov. Milton Shapp freed 251 inmates.

Werts’ backers are pinning their hopes on a June 11 ruling by U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo, who said the pardons board may not apply the tougher 1997 standard to inmates who committed their crimes before 1997 because the U.S. Constitution forbids ex post facto punishment. The decision — the latest ruling in a 12-year-old lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania Prison Society — could affect more than 3,000 of the 4,868 lifers in the state’s prisons. The pardons board has appealed.

The 1997 amendment requires that inmates sentenced to life must receive a unanimous vote of the five-member pardons board before the governor may consider their commutation request — giving a single board member the power to block any inmate’s bid. Before then, lifers needed only a majority vote to get their case before the governor.

Opponents of the referendum argue it deprives lifers of any meaningful chance to win clemency. Pennsylvania leads the nation in the number of inmates serving life sentences who were juveniles when they committed their crimes. It’s also one of only six states in which a life sentence automatically means life without parole — so commutation is the only way lifers who have already spent decades behind bars can get out of prison.

“You can’t have a right without a remedy,” said Philadelphia attorney Stephen Whinston, who represents the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a prisoner advocacy group, in its long-running legal bid to get the amendment declared unconstitutional.

“The way the board is now constituted, and the way the procedures are now set up, it’s made it almost impossible to even have a hearing before the board,” he said.

The amendment was part of an anti-crime package advocated by then-Gov. Tom Ridge in the wake of a decision by his predecessor, Robert Casey, to grant clemency to convicted killer Reginald McFadden. After he was released, McFadden killed two people in New York and raped a third. Ridge’s opponent in the 1994 election, then-Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, had voted as a pardons board member to commute McFadden’s sentence. McFadden’s killing spree — just weeks before the election — is widely believed to have contributed to Singel’s defeat.

Supporters of the amendment say the killers who make up Pennsylvania’s lifer population should face a high hurdle to freedom.

“We owe it to the victims and to society to ensure that while we do offer an avenue to clemency, it has to be a very high threshold,” said Michael Piecuch, a former prosecutor and executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. Clemency, he noted, is “not a right, it’s not an entitlement.”

The pardons board has appealed Caputo’s ruling to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, raising a question about what standard the board will use when considering the cases of Werts and Fultz — unanimity or majority.

The board could also decide to take the cases under advisement, deferring decisions until the circuit court weighs in. That’s the route it took in February 2006 — the last time Werts came before the board to ask for clemency.

Werts has the backing of former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, among others who say the Graterford prison inmate, who is from Philadelphia, is a changed man deserving of freedom.

“I think if they’re ever going to release anybody, this is the guy to release,” said Bill DiMascio, executive director of the prison society.

Werts was convicted in 1975 for his role in the slaying of a Philadelphia man during a robbery. On May 6, 1975, he and four associates conspired to stick up a Philadelphia speakeasy. Werts stayed in the car while two co-defendants entered the house; a shot was fired and a patron, 26-year-old William Bridgeman, was killed. The robbery netted $35.

After Werts rejected a plea deal of 10 years in prison, a jury convicted him of second-degree murder — an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Werts said in a 2004 interview with Philadelphia Weekly that he felt remorse.

“The fact that I didn’t enter the speakeasy was irrelevant,” he said. “I was involved. I had guns that night, and someone died because of me. I can’t disassociate myself from what happened. I’m not innocent. I’m guilty.”

He also said he regretted disappointing his parents.

“I’m the only one of their nine kids who ever got in trouble,” he told the paper. “They raised me to be a decent human being, and I squandered their efforts.”

DiMascio said Werts deserves mercy, noting that he wasn’t inside the speakeasy when Bridgeman was killed. He’s also turned his life around, winning plaudits from leaders inside and outside the prison walls.

“He’s got a lot of positive energy going for him that’s going to work for the advantage of society on the outside,” said DiMascio, who will testify on Werts’ behalf Thursday.

Fultz, of Philadelphia, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in 1975.