From Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (http://www.pa-abolitionists.org/):
Capitolwire “Under The Dome, 9/30/2019
The state Supreme Court late last week denied relief to two PA death row petitioners who had sought to have the death penalty declared unconstitutional as part of applications for the court to exercise “King’s Bench Jurisdiction.”
“King’s Bench Jurisdiction” is a rarely-used power that allows the state’s high court to exercise extraordinary jurisdiction where there may be an issue of public well-being that’s not even pending before the court, but in the court’s interpretation represents an interest of justice warranting that normal procedure be superseded. Death row inmates Jermont Cox and Kevin Marinelli challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty as it is applied in Pennsylvania based largely on the 2018 joint state government report which contained some sections suggesting a portion of the task force that produce the report supported elimination of the death penalty (based on identified shortcomings within the existing system), though the ultimate recommendations of the report are focused at improving the current process, not terminating it. Some critics of the report maintain the task force that produced the report was heavily comprised of death penalty opponents, skewing the report’s finding.
In its terse per curiam order, the court, while stating its declination to exercise its “King’s Bench Jurisdiction” was based on the information provided to it by all parties (the state Office of Attorney General argued there’s no urgent need for death penalty changes, and any such changes should be made by the Legislature), noted, “Discrete review of properly presented claims will proceed in the individual cases, subject to the jurisdictional limits of the post-conviction courts” – meaning each death penalty case can still be reviewed by the high court, within the confines of the current process of considering capital punishment cases.
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