Man’s sentence in Boca car-drag death is reduced
Serving life for killing woman as teen in 1999, he now gets 40 years.
WEST PALM BEACH — More than a decade after Jonathan Griffin was sentenced to life in prison for the car-dragging death of an 84-year-old Boca Raton woman in 1999, the former Riviera Beach man on Friday was given the chance to one day live outside prison walls.
Palm Beach Count y Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer resentenced Griffin to 40 years in prison for the death of Ida Mirel.
Griffin, who is now 35 and has been in jail or prison for 18 years, was not in court. He listened in by phone from Graceville Correctional Facility in Florida’s Panhandle.
His attorney, Jennifer Marshall, negotiated the reduced sentence with state prosecutors.
It was possible because of a string of U. S. Supreme Court decisions that struck down as unconstitutional life sentences that carry no chance for parole for juveniles.
Because their brains aren’t fully developed, they act impetuously and are amenable to rehabilitation, juveniles must be given the chance to prove that they can rejoin societ y, the high court ruled.
F l o r i d a e l i mi n a t e d p a r o l e decades ago.
Griffin was 17 when he and two other teens grabbed Mirel’s purse as she walked in the parking lot of Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House in Boca Raton in May 1999.
Mirel pursued the teens, who were in a stolen c ar. As Mirel stood in front of the car, demanding her purse, Griffin, the driver, accelerated. Mirel was dragged 2,000 feet along Glades Road in Boca Raton. Her purse contained $20. Griffin was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2000. The t wo other teens received lesser sentences.