Appeals court overturns county's longest-ever drug sentence
Political and Legal News
Pennsylvania Superior Court has overturned the longest drug sentence ever imposed in a central Pennsylvania county as "manifestly unreasonable and excessive."
Blair County Senior Judge Thomas Peoples imposed the 104½- to 216-year sentence four years ago against 43-year-old Gene "Shorty" Carter, of Philadelphia. Carter had been convicted of running a major heroin ring — while still serving time in a halfway house for a previous drug conviction.
The judge, who has since died, imposed mandatory sentences for 16 separate crimes Carter committed, then ran them consecutively.
Although the appeals court upheld those convictions, the Altoona Mirror reports Friday that the court ordered Carter must be resentenced.
The court cited a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision which determined juries must decide whether mandatory sentences are warranted, not judges.
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