State asks court to stop 'intrusion' on juvenile lifer cases

DETROIT (AP) — The state of Michigan is asking a higher court to stop a federal judge from interfering in the resentencing of so-called juvenile lifers.

The attorney general’s office is accusing Judge John Corbett O’Meara of a “deep, unwarranted intrusion” on the rights of prosecutors.

The state wants a federal appeals court to suspend or throw out a restraining order that halts the resentencing process.

Prosecutors across the state plan to disclose by July 22 whether to seek no-parole sentences again for 360 prisoners known as juvenile lifers who were convicted of murder as teenagers.

It’s the result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision about the treatment of teens in the justice system.

But O’Meara stopped the process last week.

He’s ordered parole hearings instead, but that remedy is in dispute.