DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area drug dealer nicknamed “White Boy Rick,” who has been in prison for 28 years for crimes when he was a teen, is making another effort to get his sentence reduced.
The Detroit News reports a lawyer for Richard Wershe filed a petition Tuesday in U.S. District Court asking the court to reverse state court orders and send his case for immediate resentencing.
The 47-year-old Wershe is serving a life sentence with occasional opportunities for parole. Michigan’s parole board so far has declined to release him.
The petition says his no-parole sentence violates Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment as well as Michigan’s constitution. It says parole proceedings haven’t considered Wershe’s “youthfulness at the time of his offense or his demonstrated rehabilitation, growth and maturity.”
- Posted December 09, 2016
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
'White Boy Rick' pushes for reduced sentence
headlines Macomb
- Nonprofit gets a boost
- Nessel joins multistate coalition to defend U.S. EPA’s greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles
- Michigan 529 Awareness Day calls on families to save with MET and MESP for children’s educational future
- Department highlights importance of 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline during Mental Health Month
- No charges for officer in death of Michigan teen struck by police car during chase
headlines National
- This Los Angeles lawyer found her calling as a death doula
- ACLU and BigLaw firm use ‘Orange is the New Black’ in hashtag effort to promote NY jail reform
- Artificial intelligence tools for brief writing and analysis are a small firm litigator’s new best friend
- Baker McKenzie partner drops suit seeking IRS documents on partnership scrutiny
- Family members sue networks after learning of loved ones’ deaths by seeing bodies on TV
- Ex-BigLaw attorney once ‘consumed with remorse’ over $10M client theft sentenced in new scheme