A judge on Wednesday reduced from 55 years to 30 years the prison sentence of a 24-year-old Alabaman, arrested at 15 and convicted at 18 for his involvement in a 2015 burglary resulting in police fatally shooting a 16-year-old participant in that home break-in.
"Today doesn't feel like justice,” Smith's attorney Leroy Maxwell told news reporters, his client's relatives and other supporters after Circuit Court Judge Sibley Reynolds refused a request for LaKeith Smith to be released from prison immediately.
Maxwell said he will appeal Sibley’s ruling that Smith would simultaneously serve what was a 30-year sentence for murder and a 25-year sentence for burglary, to be served one after the other.
"LaKeith is a victim of a federal felony murder rule that disproportionately affects people who look just like him,” Maxwell said. “[They] didn't pull the trigger, had no idea a murder was going to occur, had no idea death was going to occur … Yet, they are being charged as if they intentionally killed someone. And it doesn't make any sense.”
Tried as an adult, instead of a juvenile, Smith had been found guilty of felony murder, a controversial law that The Sentencing Project reported in 2022 existed in the District of Columbia and every state except Kentucky and Hawaii. Originally sentenced to 65 years under that law, a legal technicality led to Smith's term of incarceration being reduced to 55 years three years ago.
Judge Reynolds had said he granted a Monday hearing on Smith's behalf because Smith’s trial attorney did not effectively explain mitigating factors that should have been considered in the case and led to a less harsh sentence.
[Related: Sentenced to 65 years, at age 19, Alabaman will ask for prison-release]
District Attorney C.J. Robinson, a veteran prosecutor who had charged Smith and his three co-defendants with felony murder, had supported Smith's resentencing, Smith's supporters said.
Monday’s hearing to appeal Smith's sentence came as sentencing teens to what amounts to a lifetime in prison remains a hot-button issue and a target for justice reformers. The Tennessee Supreme Court, as one example, made that state the latest where such sentences are banned.
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This story was corrected on April 3, 2023: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the age of LaKeith Smith when convicted. He was 18 when convicted.