The Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled in a high-profile murder case that the state Supreme Court’s landmark 2017 decision raising the prosecutorial burden for seeking a life without parole sentence for a juvenile offender should not be applied retroactively.

In a precedential Dec. 19 ruling in Commonwealth v. Stahley, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court ruled 2-1 to uphold a Montgomery County trial court’s dismissal of defendant Tristan Stahley’s Post-Conviction Relief Act petition.