JUVENILE

ida’s prosecutors. “There’s a good justification for them to have a significant sentence. We have kids who were gang members when they committed a murder. They go off to prison and become worse gang members. They are in a downward slope for eternity; their behavior in prison shows they are not a good risk.”

Among those who have been resentenced is the triggerman in the 1993 killing of British tourist Gary Colley near Monticello.

Aundra Akins was 14 when he and three other teens robbed a highway rest stop, fatally shot Colley and wounded his fiancée, Margaret Jagger. The incident came on the heels of other slayings involving tourists across the state and prompted a crackdown on juvenile criminals.

Two decades later, in 2013, Atkins’ sentence of life without parole was reduced to 40 years, meaning he could be released by 2025. Atkins and his attorney argued at the time that he was a changed person; Jagger, who attended the resentencing, was quoted saying that she hoped that he could stay out of trouble and have another life when he eventually got out of prison.

Besides the 85 homicide offenders already resentenced, about 80 others imprisoned for life in nonhomicide cases have received new terms, Eckert said. Those new terms were prompted by a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Florida case.

Then-16-year-old Terrance Graham had been ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars for a 2004 armed home invasion. He was on probation at the time after participating in an attempted restaurant robbery a year earlier.

Graham had no option for freedom other than executive clemency. But the Supreme Court ruled that life without parole for a crime that doesn’t involve murder is unconstitutional. He was ultimately resentenced to 25 years in prison, making him eligible to leave jail by 2026.

Public defenders asked legislators this year for nearly $8 million to tackle all the case reviews, but the request was rejected.

State Sen. Aaron Bean, who oversees the criminal justice budget committee, said there is money set aside in this year’s budget to help out if caseloads become overwhelming.

“I don’t think anyone made a clear enough case that it is a ‘must fund’ or that we are in a big crisis,” he said.