OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - For the second straight week, the Nebraska Supreme Court has addressed the issue of teenagers sentenced to life in prison without parole by ordering Friday that an Omaha man be resentenced.
Trevelle Taylor, 22, was 17 in 2009 when prosecutors say he shot and killed Justin Gaines in a gang-related dispute. Taylor was convicted in 2010 as an adult of first-degree murder and a weapons count and sentenced to life in prison. The words “life without parole” do not appear in his sentence, but the judge didn’t set a discharge date for Taylor “until the Pardons Board of the State of Nebraska commutes the sentence or offers a specific term of years.”
Taylor appealed, with his public defender arguing that the trial court wrongly allowed hearsay evidence and other testimony. Douglas County Public Defender Thomas Riley also argued that Taylor’s sentence was excessive, amounting to life without parole. However, the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office argued that Taylor’s life sentence did not include the words “without parole.”
On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld Taylor’s convictions, but found that his life sentence for a crime committed as a teen was unconstitutional, citing a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said teenagers cannot be locked up for life without the chance of parole.
Last week, the state’s high court vacated the sentences of three men ordered imprisoned for life without parole for crimes they committed as teenagers.
As in its decision last week, the high court ordered Taylor resentenced in accordance with a new state law - enacted in response to the U.S. Supreme Court finding - that calls for a sentence of 40 years to life for juveniles who commit first-degree murder.
The order also requires that when Taylor is resentenced, his weapons conviction sentence must be served after his first-degree murder conviction sentence. Taylor was originally sentenced to 10 years on the weapons count, which was to run at the same time as his life sentence; when he’s resentenced, he could get 5 to 50 years on the weapons count.
Riley had not spoken to Taylor about the high court’s decision Friday morning, but said he would have been happier if the state Supreme Court had overturned Taylor’s convictions.
“I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, if you have a chance at a lighter sentence than life with no possibility of parole, then that’s the better alternative,” Riley said.
There are currently 27 people in Nebraska prisons who were sentenced to life without parole as teens.
Shannon Kingery, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, said her office expects to see several more similar cases before the state Supreme Court.
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