Attorney Gen. casts doubt on impact of no-parole decision
DETROIT (AP) — Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette believes a judge’s recent opinion on no-parole sentences for juveniles covers only five prisoners and is not a sweeping decision affecting other inmates.
Schuette’s comments are in a letter to 83 county prosecutors. He says he wants to dispel what he calls “rumors” in news reports following a recent decision by federal Judge John Corbett O’Meara.
O’Meara said Michigan prisoners should have a “fair and meaningful” shot at parole now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down
mandatory no-parole sentences for crimes committed by teens, mostly murder. The judge said Michigan’s parole law is unconstitutional.
But Schuette interprets O’Meara’s decision as affecting only a handful of inmates who filed a lawsuit, not hundreds behind bars. Attorney Deborah LaBelle disagrees. More court action is planned.
Detroit basketball coach who killed teen won’t be charged
DETROIT (AP) — A 70-year-old Detroit high school basketball coach will not be charged for fatally shooting a teenager and wounding another while they were trying to rob him outside of a school, a prosecutor said Thursday.
According to prosecutors, the two teenage boys accosted Ernest Robinson, an assistant girls' basketball coach at Martin Luther King Jr. High School, on Feb. 1 while he was walking with two of his players outside the east side school. While 16-year-old Michael Scott pointed a gun at Robinson’s players, Scott’s 15-year-old accomplice tried to tear off a chain around Robinson’s neck, prosecutors said.
Robinson, who is a reserve police officer and licensed to carry a concealed pistol, opened fire on the duo, killing Scott and wounding the 15-year-old, police and prosecutors said.
“This case is a textbook example of lawful self-defense,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. “The coach is a victim, so we are charging the 15-year-old accomplice in this case. What is left here is absolutely tragic by any standard.”
The 15-year-old has been charged with armed robbery and assault and is being held at a juvenile detention center, pending a court hearing. The prosecutor’s office said the teen is expected to be tried as an adult, but it did not release his name. If convicted as an adult, he could be sentenced as a juvenile or adult, or as a combination of both.
Scott was a ninth-grader at the school. His mother has said that he didn’t have a gun, but investigators dispute that contention.
WSU Diversity Day Program runs Feb. 27
Wayne State University Law School will hold its Diversity Day Program on Wednesday, Feb. 27 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. at the Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium, 471 W. Palmer in Detroit. This is an annual event held in recognition of the Law School Admission Councils “Discover Law” campaign. This year’s speaker will be Professor Justin Long of Wayne State University Law School. For more information, contact Felicia Thomas at 577-8040 or f.thomas@wayne.edu.
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