Iowa Supreme Court overturns 17-year-old’s robbery sentencing in 2010

A man convicted at age 17 for his part in a 2010 robbery that ended in homicide will be resentenced, according to an Iowa Supreme Court ruling Friday.

The justices overturned a appeals court decision that stated Gabriel Taylor's 25-year sentence with a mandatory 17-year prison term before being eligible for parole wasn't cruel and unusual punishment and isn't 'grossly disproportionate to his crime.”

Taylor, now 21, asked for further review on the grounds that the mandatory sentence was unconstitutional under the cruel and unusual punishment provision of the state constitution.

The Supreme Court is sending the case back to District Court for resentencing.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 2012 Miller decision that a mandatory life sentence without parole for minors violates the cruel and unusual punishment provision in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Miller ruling directs sentencing judges to consider each juvenile's home life and background, and that 'juveniles are more capable of change than adults” and lengthy sentences for juveniles without parole should be in rare or uncommon cases.

Taylor was convicted at 17, along with Johven Lee, 21 at the time, and Denum Null, 18 at the time, of robbing Kevin Bell, 25, in January 2010. Taylor and Lee, originally charged with first-degree murder, pleaded to the lesser charge of first-degree robbery because they went with Null to rob Bell, but that Null was the one who brought a gun and shot Bell in the head.

Null, now 21, who is serving 75-years in prison with a mandatory 52 years before being eligible for parole, also is up for resentencing based on the Miller decision. His resentencing is set for Oct. 3 in Linn County District Court.

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