18-04-2025
At least 15 people convicted of Lansing area murders must be resentenced
LANSING — At least 15 murderers convicted in Lansing area courts will be entitled to resentencing now that the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory life prison sentences for 19- and 20-year-olds are unconstitutional because the brains of people that age aren't fully developed.
A dozen of those offenders were convicted in Ingham County, while another three were convicted in Eaton County, local officials said.
"We're locating all of the old files so we can start identifying the (victims') next of kin, sit down with them and tell them what's going on," said Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane, a Democrat who expressed disappointment with the court's April 10 ruling. "Imagine bringing them in and telling them, '30 years ago you thought you had closure, and now you don't.'"
In a 5-2 opinion, the state's highest court ruled the mandatory sentence of life without parole for first-degree murder constitutes cruel or unusual punishment for offenders who are 19 and 20 and violate the state consitution.
"Mandatorily condemning such offenders to die in prison, without first considering the attributes of youth that late adolescents and juveniles share, no longer comports with the 'evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,'" Justice Elizabeth Welch wrote in the majority opinion.
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Late adolescents are "widely recognized" as being more susceptible to "negative outside influences" and tend to give less consideration to consequences of a decision, Welch wrote.
The ruling expands the courts' findings in an earlier case regarding 18-year-old defendants to include those who were 19 and 20 when they killed somebody. The justices made it retroactive, meaning all 19- and 20-year-old offenders who received life without parole over the years can petition for resentencing.
The five justices nominated by the Democratic Party formed the majority. The two Republican-nominated justices opposed it, with Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement writing a dissenting opinion.
If the neuroscience evidence cited by the majority justifies changing sentencing policy, it should be done by the Legislature, not the court, Clement wrote. First-degree murder is "arguably the gravest offense" in Michigan and deserves the most severe sentence, she said.
"Indeed, the opinion reads less like a judicial decision interpreting our Constitution and more like an amicus brief from a behavioral-science institute," the dissenting opinion said. "Courts should not reshape the law with every shift in scientific consensus, especially when it is the Michigan Constitution that is the subject of reshaping."
The decision impacts 579 defendants who received mandatory life sentences, according to the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, which released a statement criticizing the ruling. More than 400 of those cases were in populous Wayne County.
'Prosecutors are concerned about the further traumatization of the survivors and loved ones of victims ...," Midland County Prosecutor J. Dee Brooks, PAAM's president, said in the statement. Brooks noted that prosecutors had spent the previous few days attending vigils and community events marking National Crime Victims' Rights Week.
"We've listened to survivors say they need certainty and finality in the sentences of the convicted criminals who took the lives of their loved ones," he said. "They have described the retraumatization that results from the never-ending litigation of these cases."
Brooks also said the resulting resentencing hearings will burden many prosecutor's offices already struggling to manage caseloads without enough staff.
Lansing-area prosecutors also were not happy with the Supreme Court's ruling.
Eaton County Prosecutor Douglas Lloyd, a Republican, said he had just met with the family of a man who was murdered in 1986. The defendants were 18 and 19 at the time, and the younger defendant was just 10 days shy of his 19th birthday, he said. He had to tell the family of the man who was killed that the promises they received about never having to see the defendant again turned out to be false.
"That's a great conversation to have during a Crime Victims Rights Week," Lloyd said. "They're going to ask why what they were told 40 years ago doesn't matter anymore? What am I supposed to say? Promises were made and promises weren't kept... I ripped open a Band-Aid, and they are going to be retraumatized again."
The most recent Supreme Court ruling impacts three Eaton County cases involving 19- and 20-year-old defendants, with the most recent from 2017, Lloyd said. Three others were covered by the previous ruling involving 18-year-olds, one of whom has since been re-sentenced to a term of years, he said.
Lloyd also said he disagrees with the high court's reasoning that 19- or 20-year-olds are too immature to understand "the difference between right and wrong." They are old enough to get a college loan and do most everything an adult can do, "except for the fact they murdered someone," he said.
Prosecutors can seek to have a youthful offender re-sentenced to life without parole, but the standard of proof is high, and such a sentence should be rare, the high court said. Prosecutor have 90 days from the date of the opinion to file such a motion, the justices ruled.
Ingham County's Dewane said some of the offenders subject to the ruling have been in prison for so long that they will almost immediately be eligible for parole. The high court has held that an appropriate sentence for 18- to 20-year-olds should be 25 years to 40 years on the minimum and at least 60 years on the maximum.
"I'm disappointed with the ruling," Dewane said. "I believe we are continuing to erode victims rights while providing more rights for the accused."
Clinton County Prosecutor Tony Spagnuolo did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment on Thursday.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@ Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: 15 people convicted of Lansing area murders must be resentenced
