Pennsylvania
DePasquale and Sunday square off in first Pennsylvania attorney general debate • Pennsylvania Capital-Star
For the first time ahead of the general election, the Democratic and Republican candidates for Pennsylvania attorney general faced off in a debate on Thursday.
Former Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, a Democrat, and York County District Attorney Dave Sunday, a Republican, discussed a wide range of issues for an hour on WGAL.
“Number one, we must make sure that we protect our democracy,” DePasquale replied in an answer to what his top priority would be if elected. “It has clearly been under threat, and we also have to make sure that our democracy is working for everybody.”
DePasquale said the next attorney general will be tasked with litigation to protect everyone’s right to vote. He also listed protecting communities, abortion rights, seniors, and children as priorities.
“I can tell you right now, if our community’s not safe, nothing else matters,” Sunday responded. “Our children are facing a brutal epidemic in fentanyl that kills 15 Pennsylvanians every day.”
Sunday also added keeping children and seniors safe as top priorities.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Michele Henry is not seeking reelection, making the race to become the state’s top law enforcement official the only statewide open seat this cycle.
DePasquale, who served as the state’s auditor general from 2013 to 2021, highlighted his office’s work leading investigations finding over 3,000 untested rape kits, and 58,000 unanswered phone calls to the child abuse hotline, while highlighting personal experiences that he says will prepare him for the office.
“I’m the only one that’s run a complicated statewide agency,” DePasquale said. “That’s the type of leadership we’ll need on day one.”
Sunday, who is in his second term as York County District Attorney, detailed his 15-year record as a prosecutor and overseeing an office that has seen crime rates decrease.
“Only one person standing here has ever been a prosecutor. Only one person standing here has ever been in front of a jury. Only one person standing here has ever conducted a criminal investigation,” Sunday said.
Both candidates promoted endorsements they’ve received during the debate. DePasquale touted having the support of Gov. Josh Shapiro and Planned Parenthood, while Sunday pointed to endorsements from the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police and the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association.
Although the debate remained heavily focused on policy, the two did direct some direct shots at the other over experience.
Gun Control
DePasquale said the state is “pretty good” at cracking down on those who pull the trigger, but called for holding the person accountable for selling the gun illegally.
He also said he’d advocate the state Legislature to implement universal background checks, close the gun show loophole, and red flag laws.
Sunday said that the “group violence initiative” in York County has helped reduce shootings and holding people accountable, while also saying that “constant communication” with the Black ministers association, nonprofits, and block leaders also helped improve outcomes.
Abortion
The candidates offered different responses when asked if they would prosecute a person or a doctor for performing an abortion, should a ban take effect in Pennsylvania. Under current state law, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
“I want to be very clear. I will never prosecute a woman or a doctor that performs an abortion. If you want someone that’s going to put a woman in jail that has an abortion, you’re going to need another attorney general, because it’s not going to be me,” DePasquale said. He also added that he’d protect any woman coming to Pennsylvania for an abortion from one of the states that has a ban.
DePasquale highlighted his family’s personal experience, saying his wife had an ectopic pregnancy that was “technically an abortion,” that saved her life and allowed her to give birth to two kids later on.
Sunday said he talks about the issue on a regular basis with his wife and mother and added that “like I would every other law, I would absolutely enforce and defend the abortion laws in Pennsylvania,” citing the state’s current laws.
In regards to potential future legislation to ban abortion in Pennsylvania, Sunday said “it would never happen.”
DePasquale referenced Republicans in the state legislature who support a constitutional amendment that would create the ban and reemphasized his position. Sunday responded by saying “as a prosecutor, as a district attorney, we follow the facts and the law,” and said “there’s no scenario that exists where I would ever prosecute a woman for having an abortion.”
Death penalty
The candidates discussed the serious nature of capital punishment and shared slightly different positions.
DePasquale said he has “serious concerns” about the death penalty, saying he believes life in prison is a “very tough sentence,” but said “it is the law and we will enforce the law to the fullest extent.”
“But I want to make it clear I have deep reservations about capital punishment, as does Gov. Shapiro, and I do support the legislature making it illegal in Pennsylvania,” DePasquale said.
Sunday cited the work on the issue he’s made through the district attorneys association, calling those cases “some of the absolute most sad, tragic, terrible cases you could possibly have.”
“The legislature has made it clear that there are certain factors that if they’re at play, then the jury could have the ability to render a verdict of death. When you talk about some of the brutal, violent murders of police officers, the just sad, brutal murders of children, if the death penalty is called for in those cases, then I will support it and I will seek the death penalty,” Sunday said. “But we have to be very cautious about it. We have to be thoughtful about it, and it has to be the last resort, not the first.”
Immigration
Sunday detailed how important legal immigration is to society and mentioned that his wife moved to the United States from Sri Lanka, but that the current situation of migrants crossing at the U.S. Southern border was affecting those in the Keystone State.
DePasquale also reiterated that the United States is a nation of immigrants, but said “it should be legal immigration.” He also called for compassion to those who are already here, particularly the children born in the U.S.
Elections
The debate moderator, WGAL’s Brian Roach, referenced Gov. Josh Shapiro, the state’s previous attorney general, being tasked with pushing back on lawsuits following the 2020 presidential election and asked the candidates how they would uphold results in “future free and fair elections.”
“As attorney general, regardless of who we vote for, our job is to make sure that any voter that is legally allowed to cast a vote and cast that vote legally has that vote fairly counted,” DePasquale said. “And the person that loses that election that happens to be a sore loser and files election lawsuits based on that, we cannot let that distort our judgment. We must defend Pennsylvania’s law.”
Sunday said he would handle such a case “just like I’ve handled everything that’s come across my desk, in a nonpartisan fashion. It is very simple, you apply the facts to the law. It doesn’t matter what your political party is. It doesn’t matter if you’re right, left, up, down, middle, none of it matters because our Constitution and our country is what comes first.”
Marijuana
The two candidates also shared different views when asked about the benefits or drawbacks of legalizing recreational marijuana.
Sunday believes there has to be a voice in the discussion about safety, citing DUIs as examples.
“And so, because of how serious this is, you know, once you put the toothpaste out of the tube, it’s not going back in,” Sunday said. “We have to at least consider the public safety impact of this as we progress.”
DePasquale has supported the legalization and taxation of marijuana since 2017 and said it would be smart policy and smart safety to the communities if it is legalized.
“By legalizing it, you would actually make it harder for children to get it. You’d also make sure that the product is safer. You would also make sure that law enforcement is involved in the drafting of it. And certainly we need to make sure that we have the technology available for that anyone that’s driving under the influence, whether it be alcohol or marijuana, is prosecuted fully on that.”
A Franklin & Marshall College poll released in April showed that 62% of registered voters in Pennsylvania think recreational marijuana should be legalized in the state.
Racial disparities in criminal justice
Both candidates said they take the matter seriously, although had slightly different responses to how they currently view the matter.
“Do I believe that there are times when people have racist intentions out there? The answer is yes. Do I believe that there are times that there are two justice systems for people of color and for people that aren’t? Yes,” DePasquale said. “And do I also think there are sometimes two justice systems for people that have economic means and people that don’t. The answer to that is yes.”
“I can tell you that there’s no one that would not acknowledge that at some point in the past, there were racial disparities in our criminal justice system,” Sunday said.
“What I can say is that as we’ve moved forward, we have embraced things like procedural justice,” Sunday added, and discussed the education and training he’s embraced in his position to take the matter seriously.
Both candidates also referenced the wrongful conviction unit as important to the office of attorney general.
Unlike the race for president and U.S. Senate, there have not been as many public polls made available for the race for attorney general, however, an AARP-commissioned poll that was released on Oct. 1 showed DePasquale with 47% and Sunday at 44%, within the poll’s margin of error.
While DePasquale and Sunday were the only candidates on the stage on Thursday and are the frontrunners in the race, they are not the only candidates on the ballot for the statewide office. The Constitution Party’s Justin Magill, the Forward Party’s Eric Settle, the Green Party’s Richard Weiss, and Libertarian Party’s Robert Cowburn are also seeking the seat.
DePasquale and Sunday will face off again for a 60 minute debate on Oct. 15 at 7 PM, hosted by ABC27’s Dennis Owens, which will broadcast statewide.
Oct. 21 is the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania for the general election. The deadline to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot ballot is Oct. 29.
The Pennsylvania general election is Nov. 5.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania-born indie rockers Tigers Jaw return with new album release
The chorus for the song “Primary Colors” was something Walsh wrote years ago, with the song’s outro originally being used as a verse.
“And something just wasn’t quite clicking, and everything that I tried felt kind of forced,” Walsh said. “We were all just like, ‘Yeah, there’s something here, but it’s not quite doing what I think it has the potential to do.’”
The band then started toying with the dynamics between the verses and the chorus.
“It just unlocked something for me in the idea where I was like, ‘Wow, this kind of quiet, loud, quiet, loud format really works well with this song,’” Walsh said. “So yeah, it just transformed it instantly into an idea that felt a lot stronger.”
The album was recorded with Grammy-winning producer Will Yip, a relationship still budding from their 2014 album, “Charmer.” Collins said the new album’s sound is “as true as we could be to playing the record live.”
“I wasn’t as tied to the tones that have classically been Tigers Jaw because I think at this point, I’ve just come to this realization that no matter what, if we’re making it, it is Tigers Jaw,” Collins said.
The new album has a “palpable energy” that shares the same spirit as their earlier records, Walsh said. And while “tastes evolve,” the band followed “what feels good.”
“This is the best representation of the band at the time, and it’s almost like a snapshot of us as artists, as people, as a creative entity over this time in our career,” he said.
“Lost On You” is out now through Hopeless Records and is available on vinyl, CD and various streaming platforms.
On April 16, Tigers Jaw will perform at Union Transfer at 8 p.m. They will be supported by Hot Flash Heat Wave and Creeks, the solo project of Balance and Composure vocalist and guitarist Jon Simmons, who is from Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania court upends mandatory use of life-without-parole for second-degree murder
What to Know
- Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court says the state cannot automatically give life without parole for felony murder without weighing each defendant’s culpability in the killing.
- The high court on Thursday ordered a new sentencing hearing for Derek Lee over a second-degree conviction, but paused it for four months to give state lawmakers time to consider legislation in response.
- Pennsylvania law has made people liable for second-degree murder if they participated in an eligible felony that led to death. Life with no possibility of parole has been the only possible sentence.
- The court says the current rule treats a lookout the same as the person who kills.
Pennsylvania’s high court on Thursday overturned the use of automatic life sentences without parole for people convicted of second-degree murder, saying it violates the state’s constitutional ban on cruel punishment when imposed without a closer look at the defendant’s specific role and culpability.
The court majority ordered resentencing in the case of Derek Lee, convicted of a 2014 killing in Pittsburgh, but the decision also has implications for others among the roughly 1,000 other inmates currently serving similar second-degree murder sentences.
The court’s order was put on hold for four months to give the General Assembly time to “consider appropriate remedial measures.” In a footnote, the justices said they were ruling on Lee’s sentence and not addressing “questions of retroactivity.”
Prison reform groups hailed it as a landmark decision, while the Allegheny County district attorney’s office said it will follow the court’s order.
Pennsylvania law has made people liable for second-degree murder if they participated in an eligible felony that led to death, and life without parole has been the only possible sentence.
“The mandatory penalty scheme of life without parole for all offenders convicted of second degree murder fails to assess individual culpability regarding the intent to kill, and mandates the same punishment regardless of that culpability,” wrote Chief Justice Debra Todd in the lead opinion. She characterized it as not distinguishing “between the lookout, and the killer who pulls the trigger.”
The state high court’s decision comes after years of advocacy to undo mandatory life without parole sentences both in Pennsylvania and nationally. Nazgol Ghandnoosh of the Washington-based Sentencing Project said she counts 11 states and the federal system as having such laws for that kind of crime, sometimes called felony murder. Several states — California, Colorado and Minnesota — have moved away from that sentencing framework in recent years, she said.
Justice Kevin Dougherty noted in a separate opinion that unlike those convicted of first-degree murder, defendants serving life without parole for second-degree murder have “never been found by a judge or jury to have harbored the specific intent to kill” and may not have had “any involvement whatsoever with the actual killing. He or she does not even have to expect or foresee that a life may be taken.”
Lee’s lawyers had wanted the court to rule that life without parole sentences are unconstitutional for all second-degree murder convictions in Pennsylvania, said Quinn Cozzens, a staff attorney for the Abolitionist Law Center, which helped represent Lee. Instead, the court ruled that trial judges must examine the individual circumstances of a defendant’s case to decide which sentence is most appropriate, including the potential of life without parole.
The state’s public defenders’ association said the ruling will generate new post-conviction litigation and require them to do more investigation as well as develop “strategic litigation” to get the decision to apply retroactively.
A jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder but acquitted him of first-degree murder in 44-year-old Leonard Butler’s shooting death. Butler was shot in a struggle over a gun with Lee’s codefendant, Paul Durham.
Prosecutors argued it should be up to state lawmakers and the executive branch to address the policy issues surrounding second-degree murder sentences. Todd wrote that while the district attorney’s office “acknowledges that there may be persuasive arguments why a non-slayer should not be held to the same degree of culpability as the slayer, it stresses that these are policy decisions for the General Assembly.”
Cozzens urged lawmakers to “address this constitutional violation, given that the court granted them the opportunity to do so.”
Rep. Tim Briggs, a suburban Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the state House Judiciary Committee, said he planned to engage with Senate Republicans on potential legislation in response.
Briggs said he wanted to have decision apply retroactively, to give people serving life “for being the getaway driver” to “have the opportunity to have their facts looked at again.”
“I think inaction leaves a lot of this up to the courts to decide. I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” Briggs said. “We have a policymaking role here.”
Justice Sallie Mundy wrote that Lee “willingly participated in an armed home invasion and robbery, and purposefully engaged in assaultive behavior in the form of tasing and pistol-whipping the victim.” She said Lee and Durham “arguably kidnapped the victims by forcing them into the basement” and it will be up to the county judge to decide if Lee’s life-without-parole sentence is appropriate.
Todd’s opinion, citing an advocacy group, said 73% of those convicted of felony murder in Pennsylvania were 25 or younger when the killing occurred and almost 70% are Black people.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also responded to the ruling on X.
Today, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for second degree murder are unconstitutional.
I have long believed this law is unjust and wrong. As Governor, I took legal action in this case arguing to strike down this…
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) March 26, 2026
Pennsylvania
Teen boys in Pennsylvania get probation after using AI to create fake nude photos of classmates
LANCASTER, Pa. — Two teenage boys who used artificial intelligence to create fake nude photos of their classmates at an exclusive private school in Pennsylvania received probation Wednesday after dozens of victims described the images’ traumatizing effect on them.
The boys were 14 at the time. They admitted this month that they made about 350 images, showing at least 59 girls under 18, along with other victims who so far have not been identified.
Authorities said the boys took images of the girls from school photos, yearbooks, Instagram, TikTok and FaceTime chats in 2023 and 2024, and morphed them with images of adults depicting nudity or sexual activity.
More than 100 students and parents from Lancaster Country Day School were in court to hear victims describe the shock of having to identify their own faces in pornographic photos to detectives. Juvenile proceedings in Pennsylvania are normally closed, but this was opened by the judge, providing an unusual opportunity for the community to be seen and heard.
The girls described the fallout — anxiety attacks, a loss of trust, problems focusing on schoolwork and a fear that the images may someday surface in unexpected ways.
The two young men stood stone-faced throughout, flanked by their lawyers and parents, as they were called pedophiles, “sick and twisted” and perverted.
“I will never understand why they did this,” one victim told Judge Leonard Brown, saying it “destroyed my innocence.”
One young woman told Brown “how excruciating it is to bring these feelings up again and again.” Another choked back tears as she excoriated one of the defendants for expressing “fake empathy” as girls confided with him about their pain, before it became known that he had been part of creating and disseminating the images. Still another said all of her friends transferred schools, and that she “needed trauma therapy to even walk around my neighborhood.”
The defendants declined several opportunities to comment to the judge, who said he had not heard either boy take responsibility or apologize.
“This has been a regrettable, long, torturous process for everyone involved,” said Heidi Freese, defense attorney for one of the defendants. “There were very interesting, underlying legal issues surrounding the charges in this case and those will be decided on a different day in a different case.”
Brown ordered each to perform 60 hours of community service, have no contact with the victims and pay an unspecified amount of restitution. If they don’t have any additional legal problems, Brown said, the case can be expunged after two years.
As he imposed his sentence, Brown said that if they were adults, they probably would be headed for state prison. He said they should “take this opportunity to really examine” themselves.
The resolution of the Pennsylvania case comes days after three teenagers in Tennessee sued Elon Musk’s xAI, claiming the company’s Grok tools morphed their real photos into explicitly sexual images. The high school students are seeking class-action status to represent what the lawsuit says are thousands of people who were similarly victimized as minors.
The scandal in Pennsylvania led to a student protest, criminal charges against the two teenagers and the departure of leaders at the school, which says it has about 600 students K-12, class sizes averaging just 12 kids, and “an endowment in excess of $25 million.”
Nadeem Bezar, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents at least 10 of the victims, said Tuesday he expects to file a claim “against the school and anybody else we think has culpability in these deepfakes being created and disseminated.”
He said he has not yet seen the photos but expects the legal process to determine “exactly when and where and how the school knew, how the boys created these images, what platforms they used to create these images and how they were disseminated.”
As AI has become accessible and powerful, lawmakers across the country have passed laws aimed at barring deepfakes.
President Donald Trump signed the Take it Down Act last year, making it illegal to publish intimate images including deepfakes without consent, and requiring websites and social media sites to remove such material within 48 hours of being notified by a victim.
Forty-six states now have laws addressing deepfakes, with legislation introduced in the remaining four — Alaska, Missouri, New Mexico and Ohio — according to the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
___
Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.
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