By Ed White
Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area prosecutor says she’ll seek another no-parole sentence for a 71-year-old man who is the oldest so-called juvenile lifer in the Michigan prison system.
Sheldry Topp has been in prison for nearly 54 years. He was 17 in 1962 when he ran away from a state hospital, broke into an Oakland County home and fatally stabbed the owner.
Life sentences with no chance for parole are no longer automatic for anyone under 18. Juvenile lifers have a right to new hearings as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Judges now have discretion and can consider an offender’s childhood, education and a variety of other factors.
Prosecutors across Michigan are filing their sentencing proposals this week in more than 350 cases.
Oakland County prosecutor Jessica Cooper said she’ll seek no-parole sentences again for 44 people who are in prison, including Topp.
She declined to explain her position in Topp’s case during an interview with The Associated Press, referring a reporter to a court filing, which wasn’t available after business hours.
“When we talk about doing due diligence, we did an incredible amount of due diligence in these cases,” said Cooper, a former judge. “The cases that we’ve been reviewing are not the kids who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. We’re talking about stabbings, shootings and strangulations. ... I’m shocked.”
Topp, who turns 72 in September, is in a prison in Muskegon. In a recent court filing, attorney Deborah LaBelle said he was in a hospital with heart problems.
She couldn’t be reached for comment last Friday.
In 1987 and 2007, the state parole board recommended that Topp’s sentence be reduced, but governors declined.
Meanwhile, in Wayne County — the state’s largest — prosecutor Kym Worthy said she would seek no-parole sentences again for at least 60 prisoners who were convicted of murder as teens.
Worthy said she’ll ask that 81 people be given a certain number of years in prison instead of a no-parole sentence.
That could lead to freedom for some who already have been locked up for decades.
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