Juvenile lifer skips chance to possibly get new sentence

PONTIAC (AP) — A man convicted of killing three people when he was a teenager says he was “rotten from the beginning” and is skipping a chance to possibly get a new sentence from a judge in suburban Detroit.

Michael Kvam told a judge last Friday that he deserves to die in prison. TV station WXYZ quotes Kvam as saying, “I’m a killer, plain and simple.”

Kvam was convicted of killing a teenager, a woman and a 9-year-old girl in Oakland County in 1984. He was 17 at the time of the homicides. Under a U.S. Supreme Court decision, teens given automatic no-parole sentences are entitled to a new hearing.

But Kvam, who’s now 52 years old, waived that opportunity last Friday. It’s possible that he would have received the same sentence.