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Man, 44, imprisoned for life when a juvenile, gets a hearing

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has sent the case of Kempis Songster, a 44-year-old man serving a life sentence without parole for a murder he committed when he was 15, back to the federal judge who previously ruled he was entitled to a new sentencing hearing.

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has sent the case of Kempis Songster, a 44-year-old man serving a life sentence without parole for a murder he committed when he was 15, back to the federal judge who previously ruled he was entitled to a new sentencing hearing.

The movement in the case comes in the wake of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions: one banning mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles; the other Montgomery v. Louisiana, decided in January, which made that ruling retroactive.

The ruling in Montgomery has left the fates of 1,500 inmates - including 300 in Philadelphia - newly unsettled, with the possibility of release or resentencing.

Songster, from Brooklyn, N.Y., was convicted in 1988 along with his friend Dameon Brome, also 15 at the time, of fatally stabbing Anjo Pryce, 17, inside a fortified crack house in Southwest Philadelphia controlled by a Jamaican drug gang. All three were runaways.

Songster and Brome, who had both attended a school for gifted and talented students, turned down plea offers that would have allowed them to serve a maximum of 20 years. They were convicted by a jury and sentenced automatically to life without parole.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Savage ordered a status hearing for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. He ruled in 2012 that Songster was entitled to a resentencing hearing or release based on the Supreme Court decision that such an automatic sentence was unconstitutional for a juvenile.

Since Montgomery, state and federal appellate courts have sent dozens of appeals from prisoners sentenced as juveniles to automatic life without parole back to lower courts for resentencing.

Prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys in Philadelphia are working to establish a structure to resolve such a large number of cases at once, including what alternative sentences might be imposed.

In Songster's case, the order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacates Savage's earlier ruling and states that the case go forward in "proceedings not inconsistent with Montgomery."

As in that case, Savage concluded that Songster was entitled to a new sentencing hearing or release. Savage wrote that rulings on the special characteristics of juveniles "are an acknowledgment that there is no real difference between the death penalty and life without parole in the case of a juvenile defendant."

Songster, represented by Douglas Fox of Philadelphia, is being held in Graterford Prison, along with about 80 other juvenile lifers.

arosenberg@phillynews.com

609-576-1973 @AmySRosenberg

Staff writer Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this article.