Juvenile Lifer Resentencing: 7 Notable Metro Detroit Cases

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LANSING, MI – The Michigan Court of Appeals is working out the details of how the state will comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring new sentences for hundreds of killers who were sentenced as teens to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Michigan court was asked to decide whether a judge or a jury should hand down the new sentences, The Detroit News reports. It’s unclear when oral arguments will be scheduled for an anticipated hearing on the issue.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life-without-parole sentences handed down to juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling angered victims’ rights advocates, including Jody Robinson, president of the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Murderers, who told the newspaper resentencing is “a horror story” for victims’ survivors.

“Unless you have gone through it, you have no idea how hard this is on families of the victims,” said Robinson, whose brother, James Cotaling, 28, of Pontiac, died after he was stabbed multiple times by Barbara Hernandez, 17, and her boyfriend, James Hyde, 20, in a carjacking.

“I believe if you’re able to plan over three days to steal a car and murder someone — and then stabbing them 26 times ... I don’t believe you have been sentenced too harshly. I don’t believe you are entitled to a second chance. Why? My brother didn’t get a second chance.”

Valerie Newman, an assistant defender in the State Appellate Defenders Office, said that in some cases, juvenile lifers would already have been eligible for parole if they had been sentenced in the adult court system.

And Ann Arbor attorney Deborah LaBelle, whose law firm is handling about 100 juvenile lifer cases in Michigan, told The Detroit News that about two-thirds of the juvenile lifers have already served about 25 years behind bars.

“What about those who realize and accept the wrongfulness of their acts and have not had one misconduct in 20 years?” LaBelle said. “They’ve done everything they can and aren’t of any risk.”

In Michigan, 363 individuals whose crimes date back to 1962 could get new sentences, including 152 in Wayne County, 49 in Oakland County, 26 in Genesee County, 24 in Kent County and 12 in Macomb County.

Among them are juvenile lifers in these notable Metro Detroit cases:

• Sheldry Topp, 71, was 17 when he was convicted in the 1962 stabbing of Oakland County lawyer Charles Davies. Believed to be the oldest juvenile lifer in Michigan’s prison, “he has a weak heart condition,” LaBelle, told The Detroit News. “Let him see the night sky before he dies.” A Michigan parole board recommended his release on an 8-2 vote, but then Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm denied the request.
• Also in Oakland County, Thomas Jay McCloud Jr. was 14 when he kicked two homeless men to death in separate incidents. Another 14-year-old, Dontez Marc Tillman, was arrested in one of the murders.
• Another juvenile lifer, John Hall, was 17 when he was convicted in a 1967 fatal beating in a Detroit alley, despite the lack of any physical evidence linking him to the crime and an alibi that placed him elsewhere at the time of the crime. He was convicted after his first trial ended with a hung jury.
• Joseph Andrew Passeno and Bruce Christopher Michaels Jr. were 17 and 16, respectively, when they were convicted in a high profile case in which the bodies of General Motors executive Glenn Tarr and his wife, Wanda, were discovered in a park. The FBI said at the time it appeared that they had been abducted and taken elsewhere before they were shot multiple times. Their Rochester Hills home had ben ransacked and looted.
• Jonathan Belton was 16 when he was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences for first-degree murder and murder of a peace officer in the 2008 shooting death of Oak Park Police Officer Mason Samborski. His defense attorney argued at the time that Belton accidentally shot Samborski, 28, in the head in a struggle for his gun.
• Ihab Maslamani was 17 and Robert Taylor was 16 when they were arrested in 2009 carjacking, abduction and execution style shooting of 21-year-old Matthew Landry, of Chesterfield Township. Landry was held for 10 hours in a three-day crime spree that included an armed bank robbery in Harrison Township and an attempted carjacking in Roseville.
• Semaj Moran was 15 when he was charged after fatally shooting Loretta Fournier, 52, and Luann Robinson, 58, — who he referred to as “Auntie Loretta” and “Mama Lo” — after Fournier reportedly gave him a phony $10 bill for marijuana. Police said he he shot Fournier three times, once in the head at close range and once in the back.

» For more about this, including interviews with attorneys, prosecutors and others affected by the resentencing ruling, go to The Detroit News.

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