Vittone lends his support to mandatory minimum sentencing
PITTSBURGH – Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone voiced his support Tuesday for restoring mandatory minimum sentences in Pennsylvania that were deemed unconstitutional last year by the state Supreme Court.
Vittone joined Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. and other officials at a news conference in the Allegheny County Courthouse to back state House Bill 741, which would restore such sentences for heroin convictions and other crimes, and is expected to reach the floor in two weeks.
“We don’t have the tools to really get these people out of circulation,” Vittone said. “This is something we definitely need with this fentanyl and heroin epidemic.”
The high court last year struck down such sentencing rules, stating that parts of the drug-free school zone law’s sentencing guidelines already had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The state court’s ruling also tossed out a number of other similar sentencing laws in Pennsylvania.
Allegheny County experienced 594 heroin-related overdoses last year, helping to leave “very little disagreement” among law enforcement officials about re-establishing drug-free zones around schools and returning mandatory sentences for crimes against children and people over age 60, failure to register as a sex offender and certain firearms violations, Zappala said.
While the proposed bill does not require a mandatory sentence for a first conviction of possessing a large amount of marijuana, it would keep in place mandatory sentences for heroin convictions. Someone convicted of possessing one to five grams of heroin could be sentenced to two years in prison for a first conviction and three years for a second.
Vittone said the new law, if enacted, would allow investigators to use the threat of mandatory sentences to get suspects to turn on larger dealers.
“It’s discretionary,” he said.