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State Supreme Court debating life sentence for man already in prison for deadly crash

April 13, 2022 / 5:21 AM EDT / CBS Pittsburgh

State Supreme Court Debating Life Sentence

HARRISBURG (KDKA) – The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court will now decide if a man should serve life in prison for a deadly crash.

Demetrius Coleman is in prison for a Thanksgiving Day crash in North Versailles that happened five years ago.

The crash took the lives of a family of three.

Under state law, anyone convicted for third-degree murder who has previously been convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter must serve life in prison.

According to a report from the Trib, the two sides are debating the word "previously."

Patrick Damp

Patrick Damp is a web producer for CBS Pittsburgh. A Pittsburgh native who grew up watching KDKA-TV, Patrick studied journalism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. After half a decade in sports communication, Patrick decided to pursue his dream of working in journalism in his hometown and joined the CBS Pittsburgh team in 2019.