A 50-year-old Arkansas man in prison for a murder he committed as a teenager is due a new sentencing hearing, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday in the latest of a series of cases examining life-without-parole sentences given to minors.
The 6-1 decision by the court found that Jimmy Scherrer's case was analogous to the circumstances in the case behind the high court's precedent-setting decision in 2018, Harris v. State, which struck down portions of the state's Fair Sentencing of Minors Act.
The law, also known as Act 539 of 2017, was passed by the Legislature in order to bring the state into compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court's 2012 ban on mandatory life sentences for minors.
Shortly after the law was passed, Scherrer was resentenced under the provisions of Act 539 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
That sentence was a relief from the life-without-parole term he had originally been handed in 1986, at age 16, after being found guilty of murdering Debbie Watts, a 25-year-old adult education teacher in Dumas. Scherrer's cousin and friend were also implicated in the crime.
By the time he was resentenced in May 2017, Scherrer had already served 30 years in prison, and was eligible for parole under the terms of Act 539.
However, Scherrer began petitioning the Supreme Court for a more lenient sentence, arguing, along with several other former youth offenders, that Act 539 should not be applied retroactively, and that each offender should get a new hearing and a chance at either a term-of-years sentence or life.
A majority of the justices first sided with that argument in the Harris case in 2018, and followed up Thursday by granting Scherrer a new hearing in the Desha County Circuit Court.
Scherrer's case is unique, however, because he had already been made eligible for parole under Act 539, according to Arkansas Public Defender Coordinator Gregg Parrish. (Parrish is not Scherrer's attorney.)
Parrish's office has kept track of the roughly 50 state inmates whose cases fall under the Harris precedent. Many of those offenders were caught up in the 1990s' tough-on-crime sentences, and would have still had to wait years for parole eligibility under Act 539's 30-year guideline.
Scherrer was not granted a parole hearing in 2017 after being resentenced under Act 539, and Parrish said Scherrer's sentencing order -- showing that he was parole eligible -- was not given to the Parole Board until the following January. A spokeswoman with the Department of Corrections -- which oversees the Parole Board -- confirmed that the order was not received until January 2018, though she could not say why.
Now, with his Act 539 sentence vacated, Scherrer must wait until he is resentenced to be considered for parole.
Parrish said he is considering representing Scherrer at resentencing in Desha County due to his interest in the case. Scherrer represented himself on appeal to the Supreme Court.
"This guy, in essence, has done two years without a hearing," Parrish said. "He has a right, at least, to be considered [for parole]."
Tenth Judicial Circuit Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Deen, whose jurisdiction includes Desha County, said on Thursday that his office had just received the Supreme Court's opinion, and he would not comment on what penalty he would seek at resentencing.
The Supreme Court's opinion, written by Chief Justice Dan Kemp, was joined by Justices Josephine "Jo" Hart, Karen Baker and Courtney Hudson. Justices Rhonda Wood and Robin Wynne each signed concurring opinions, pointing to reasoning explained in previous concurrences in similar cases.
Justice Shawn Womack dissented, as he did in the Harris case.
Metro on 10/11/2019