Sentence reduction in rape case denied

A judge considered reinstating a life sentence for a man who was a juvenile when he took part in one of the most notorious crimes in Palm Beach County history — forcing a mother into a sex act with her own child.

Chief Judge Krista Marx said she believed life in prison was the appropriate penalty for Jakaris Taylor, but in the end, she kept his 65-year sentence in place, citing the victims’ need for closure.

Taylor, now 27, was 15 in 2007, when he and three other teenagers raped and beat a woman in her Dunbar Village apartment in West Palm Beach. The teens even held the woman at gunpoint, forcing her into a sex act with her own son, then ordered the pair into a bathtub filled with chemicals.

“I don’t know of any case that compares to this,” Marx said at one point during Wednesday’s hearing.

Taylor, one of the two juvenile attackers originally receiving a life sentence, had his penalty reduced to 65 years after U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the constitutionality of lifetime incarcerations for underage defendants.

“I am truly sorry,” Taylor said as he apologized in court.

Taylor’s attorney, Christopher Haddad, said his client is now on the right path in prison and is deserving of another reduction in his sentence.

Prosecutors, though, argued instead of reducing Taylor’s sentence, his life term should be reinstated. They cited disciplinary incidents since Taylor has been in custody and the fact that state law now entitles juvenile offenders to a 20-year sentence review.

Marx pointed out that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cited the Dunbar case in writing that a juvenile life sentence could be warranted for extreme circumstances.

But Marx also indicated that

juvenile sentences could once again be revisited by the courts and said she wanted to protect the victims in this case from further legal uncertainty.

“I firmly believe that all this time later, that they are irreparably scarred and harmed from this,” she said. “And this, they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.”

The victims have since moved from the area and did not attend Wednesday’s hearing.

Another juvenile Dunbar defendant, Nathan Walker, is also seeking re-sentencing. No hearing date has been set in his case.

FORT

— Eugene Birch Willey, a former downtown merchant who loved fishing and Fort Lauderdale, died Tuesday at age 88.

Willey, known to everyone as “Birch,” owned the Hobby House camera and photo equipment shop, long before iPhones made cameras ubiquitous. He developed film for customers before the digital age, and gave out extra flash cubes to his daughters’ friends.

A great-nephew of Hugh Taylor Birch — the Broward pioneer and owner of the land that’s now Hugh Taylor Birch State Park — Willey loved the outdoors.

He wasn’t a drinker but enjoyed Heineken occasionally, and was particularly fond of strawberry milkshakes.

Gale Butler, a civic leader and now executive director of Friends of Birch State Park, said she and Willey became fast friends decades ago, when he had his camera shop and she worked for what was then Landmark Bank.

Willey brought Habitat for Humanity to town, she said, and put her on the board — her first such appointment. She said he was a great oral historian of “Uncle Hugh” Birch.

He also adored his of 66 years, Claudia.

Just a few years ago, Butler asked Claudia Willey to tell her about when they met.

“She said, ‘I can tell you one thing, he’s the best kisser.’ They were still in love,” Butler said.

Longtime family friend Leslie Shailer Curley, who grew up as a neighbor to the Willeys, said one thing wife everyone knew about Willey was that he was frugal. When his wife needed a haircut, he carefully snipped away.

She said the family made a touching discovery in Willey’s wallet recently:

Willey carried a small piece of paper that listed important moments: his first date with Claudia, the day they started going steady, the day they got “pinned” as a couple, their engagement and their wedding day.

He also carried a beautiful piece about Alzheimer’s, a disease that struck his wife, and a “tender poem about the outdoors,” Curley said.

Willey was born in Marion, Ohio, and earned a degree from the University of Arkansas. He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.

When he moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1957, it was a small town.

He and his wife lived on Ponce De Leon Drive in Rio Vista, neighbors to the Shailers. Philip Shailer is a former Broward state attorney. Another neighbor was Boyd Anderson, a county judge and namesake for a local high school.

The Willeys adopted two daughters, Jean and Diane, both of whom still