Tuesday morning’s lead editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer is a complaint that President Trump is fighting a war on the truth by claiming that the credentialed media often publish #FakeNews, while at the same time publishing, as an ostensibly ‘straight news’ story that is actually a sob story about a convicted murderer who wants to get out of prison.

She fought to bring the man she loves home from prison after a landmark court ruling. But lawmakers’ inaction has left her in limbo.

Matthew Garcia, who has been incarcerated for nearly three decades, and Cari Magobet advocated for legislation that would have given Garcia a chance to come home.

by Jillian Kramer | Tuesday, July 28, 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT

The phone rang at lunchtime, the way it did every day. Carisia Magobet answered within seconds.

An automated voice spoke first: This call is from a Pennsylvania state correctional institution.

Then his.

“May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you, my love,” Matthew Garcia said in Arabic.

They had only 15 minutes, and for once, Magobet did not spend the first of them on small talk. There was no good way to tell him what she knew: State lawmakers had gone home the night before without taking the vote that the couple had hoped would bring him home.

Mr Garcia was 18 when he and four of his “friends” decided to rob a bar, and a retired Philadelphia Police officer, Frank King, was killed. At least two of the thugs were armed, one with a sawed-off shotgun, and another with a pistol; the story by reporter Jillian Kramer does not tell us whether all five were armed, but Mr Garcia claims that he was not, and was only the lookout and had already taken off when Mr King was killed. Under Title 18 §2502(b), Murder of the second degree, is “A criminal homicide constitutes murder of the second degree when it is committed while defendant was engaged as a principal or an accomplice in the perpetration of a felony.” Whether Mr Garcia entered the bar, whether he was armed, whether he saw the shooting, he was nevertheless an accomplice, and all five of the goons were convicted of second degree murder. Under Title 18 §1102(b), the penalty for second degree murder is life imprisonment.

We have thrice previously noted the case of Derek Lee, convicted of second-degree murder, and sentenced, as was mandatory under the law, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But in March of this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a mandatory life without parole sentence was unconstitutional. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

Legislators have debated Pennsylvania’s sentence for felony murder for years. Beyond the challenge to the sentence as potentially cruel, advocates have pointed out that those imprisoned for the crime are disproportionately Black, that about half are from Philadelphia, and that hundreds have already served decades in prison, putting them beyond the age at which they’re likely to commit another crime.

It is certainly true that about half are from the City of Brotherly Love, but that’s because where about half of the murders in the Keystone State are committed! And if many are now beyond prime crime committing ages, how many of their victims have returned from the grave to continue their previous lives?

If legislators have debated this for years, and not changed the law, does that not mean that the Commonwealth’s elected representatives believe that the life without parole mandate is what their constituents want?

Miss Kramer’s article is just one long sob story, about how poor, poor Mr Garcia is now a good, good guy, totally reformed, and just deserves a chance at freedom again. Did you know that Mr Garcia has adopted a calico cat in a prison program? Miss Magobet just loves him so! Sure tugs on the heartstrings, doesn’t it? But Frank King is still stone-cold graveyard dead, and the people who loved him in 1998 have still not been reunited with him.

Miss Kramer tells us how a deadline imposed by the Supreme Court had passed, and still Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature could not agree on a bill to address the issue. Sounds to me like their constituents really don’t want murderers released.

As for the Editorial Board complaining that President Trump is trying to stifle the truth, perhaps they should consider that Miss Kramer’s one-sided sob story is not unbiased news, but exactly that about which Mr Trump complained.