Michigan juvenile lifers still wait for re-sentencing after 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled three and a half years ago that juvenile lifers should have the opportunity to be re-sentenced and come home, but many in West Michigan are still waiting to go before a judge to learn their fate.

The court ruled in 2016 that teenagers shouldn't receive mandatory life sentences because of developmental differences in the brain. Since the ruling, many prosecutors in Michigan said there's little agreement on what the process should look like since the opinion left the application of the ruling up to each state.

"We have a lot of cases that remain needing to be litigated. All of those case requiring council, all of them requiring resources, all of them requiring funding," said Tina Olson.

Olson is an attorney with the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office (SADO), whose office is representing about less than two-thirds of the state’s cases.

The Michigan Supreme Court decided in June 2018 that sentencing hearings would be handled by a judge and not a jury.

A recent Detroit Free Press analysis revealed there were more than half or nearly 200 juvenile inmates in Michigan awaiting judicial review following the 2016 supreme court decision that all juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole should be given the opportunity to face a parole board.

"The Supreme Court has told us we need to look at each case separately," said Calhoun County Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Baldwin.

Since the Supreme Court ruling. a team of prosecutors in Calhoun County have been pouring over the eight cases involving juvenile murders.

According to Calhoun County Prosecutor David Gilbert, four juveniles convicted of murder have already been re-sentenced and four more are pending.

"The cases that are pending right now, these are people that actually took part in the homicides," said Gilbert.

A judge re-sentenced Brad Warner on Aug. 15, 2019, to a 40-60 year prison term for the 1991 strangulation death of Christa Ferree, a 17-year-old Harper Creek student.

Warner was 16-years-old at the time of the killing. He was convicted along with John Loepke and Thomas Kraus, both 17-years-old at the time.

Loepke will be re-sentenced on September 11, 2019, and Kraus will be re-sentenced in October.

"The Supreme Court ruled very few of these cases should be life without parole cases. Our position is that former prosecutors looked at these cases. We're the secondary prosecutors to look at these cases. Someone else already made a decision," Gilbert said.

Jason Symonds, has a hearing scheduled on Oct. 28, and Chavez Hall, on Dec. 4.

Symonds was convicted of first-degree murder in the April 26, 1994 rape and murder of Nicole Van Noty, 5, when Symonds was 16-years-old.

Hall is serving a life sentence after his conviction as one of three people who killed two women and attacked others and then set a fire at King's Garden Health Spa on Jan. 27, 1999. Hall was 15-years-old at the time.

Because of a conflict, Hall's case is being argued before Lincoln by Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting.

According to Getting, there are six juveniles convicted of murder yet to be re-sentenced in Kalamazoo County.

Getting said he is awaiting a Michigan Supreme Court ruling whether the court properly considered the defendant’s family and home environment or the availability of treatment programs in weighing the person's potential to become rehabilitated.

"It's unlikely that we will have opinion from the Court about the basic parameters of the re-sentencing hearing until next spring or summer," Getting wrote in an email.

Six juvenile inmates are currently in custody for life sentences for crimes committed in Kalamazoo County:

• Daryle Baker: sentenced on 5/2/1994; he has served approximately 25 years, 3 months, and 19 days.
• Patrick Gray: sentenced on 8/14/2000; he has served approximately 19 years, and 7 days.
• Angela McConnell: sentenced on 12/1/2008; she has served approximately 10 years, 8 months, and 20 days.
• Odies Murray: sentenced on 6/30/2008; he has served approximately 11 years, 1 month, and 22 days.
• William Neilly: sentenced on 11/29/1993; he has served approximately 25 years, 8 months, and 23 days.
• Devon Wyrick: sentenced on 11/12/1996; he has served approximately 22 years, 9 months, and 9 days.

Under Michigan law, a recommendation of term of years goes directly to a judge for sentencing while a recommendation of continued life is a much more time-consuming legal process.