In a 2018 speech, Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D), who is competing with Mehmet Oz (R) for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, urged that the country “do away of cash bail” for criminal suspects.
In the recently discovered tape, Fetterman makes the suggestion that the United States abolish cash bail for criminal suspects so that they be either detained in jail prior to trial or freed entirely during the Pennsylvania Young Dems Conference in August 2018.
“We’re against criminalization. In places where it is appropriate, we want to do away with cash bail in order to avoid criminalizing things like poverty, race, and other issues with our current criminal justice system.” This is what Fetterman is heard saying in the audio clip.
The recording comes after earlier conversations surfaced in which Fetterman was heard supporting the release from jail of second-degree killers and saying that there is “always that possibility” they commit other murders.
“If someone were to hurt someone, it would be terrible and personally devastating. Theoretically, there’s always that chance,” according to Fetterman in a 2019 interview.
Fetterman, a former mayor of Braddock, PA, has long supported closing the state’s prisons. For instance, he has stated that he wants to free about 13,000 prisoners from prisons throughout the state.
Similarly, Fetterman has stated that repealing Pennsylvania’s legislation allowing judges to sentence guilty offenders to life in prison without the possibility of release is his top priority. He fought to have the state’s mandatory life without parole penalty for anyone found guilty of second-degree murder eliminated last year.
In 2019, Fetterman was successful in persuading Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe (D) to commute the sentence of “a son of the devil” Raymond Johnson, who was convicted of the second-degree murder of a 27-year-old male in York, PA.
According to Breitbart News, while serving as the Board of Pardons’ chairman, Fetterman oversaw the release of 13 convicted killers. The obligatory life without parole terms for first- and second-degree murders were also a bone of contention for one of Fetterman’s board nominees.
