Court: No break for man serving 60 to life for having parents killed
Teen paid classmates for dual murder in 1996
The Patriot-News
An Aliquippa man who was 16 when he hired two high school classmates to murder his parents can’t evade the new 60-year-to-life prison sentence he received for the slayings, a state appeals court has ruled.
The Beaver County judge who imposed that penalty on Brian Samuel in January didn’t violate his civil rights or a U.S. Supreme Court edict that deemed life without parole sentences for juvenile killers to be illegal, the Superior
Court panel concluded.
So, Samuel’s claim that his punishment is “manifestly excessive” simply doesn’t fly, Judge Judith Ference Olson found in the state court’s opinion.
Samuel, now 40, originally was sentenced to consecutive life without parole terms after a county jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder in 1997 for the April 1996 slayings of his parents, William and Teresa.
Prosecutors said Samuel was upset because his parents were blocking his access to his grandparents’ money. Investigators said he hired a 16-year-old and an 18year-old classmate to shoot his parents to death for $24,000.
Samuel gave the nod to commence the hit at his family’s home, police said.
The district attorney’s office sought the death penalty during the 1997 trial, but the jury opted for a life prison term for one of the murders and deadlocked while considering the appropriate penalty for the other killing.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that triggered Samuel’s resentencing was issued in 2012.
During the January resentencing hearing, prosecutors urged county Judge Dale M. Fouse to sentence Samuel to two consecutive 35-year-to-life prison terms. Samuel pleaded for concurrent 35year-to-life sentences, which would have made him eligible for parole at age 51.
By running the murder sentences consecutively, Judge Fouse ensured Samuel won’t become eligible for parole until he is 76.
Judge Olson’s court did give Samuel one win: It overturned Judge Fouse’s order that required Samuel to pay the cost of his resentencing. That wasn’t appropriate because the resentencing was prompted by a change in the law, Judge Olson found.
One of Samuel’s co-defendants, Pete Schoonover, who was 18 at the time of the murders, is serving a life without parole sentence. The other killer, Trazis Durham, who was 16, was resentenced last month to 40 to 50 years behind bars, court records show.