Letter to the editor: Fetterman right about parole

I kept hearing in one of Dr. Mehmet Oz’s TV ads that John Fetterman votes to let savage young violent criminals out of prison, focusing on one case in particular. So I looked into it. Turns out one was a 73-year old man who’s been in jail for 54 years, who committed murder when he was 19.

The old man is considered in poor health and no longer a danger. His name is Wayne Covington, and he earned a bachelor’s degree while in prison and was offered a teaching job decades ago. Taxpayers are still footing the $37,000-a-year bill to keep Covington in jail.

All but one of the prisoners Fetterman successfully helped release had been in jail for over 30 years.

Also, Pennsylvania is one of only eight states that mandate a life sentence without parole for people who participated in a felony that resulted in someone’s death, even if they never killed anybody. It’s called second-degree felony murder, and over 1,000 people are in jail for life because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time — even though they never pulled the trigger.

That’s crazy, and I’m with John Fetterman all the way on making parole an option for judges. There is much about atonement and redemption in the Bible.

Dean Orfanoyannis

McKees Rocks