The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled the life without parole sentence given to Efran Paredes in his murder case will stand.
The court last week issued an opinion holding Berrien County Judge Charles LaSata was not in error when sentencing Paredes to life without parole in May of this year. That’s after Paredes was originally sentenced to life without parole in 1989.
Paredes has appealed his sentence several times, most recently due to Miller v Alabama, a U.S. Supreme Court case which found life without parole sentences for juveniles to be unconstitutional. The Michigan Appeals Court ordered that Paredes be resentenced earlier this year, leading to the sentence handed down by LaSata in May.
The state appeals court wrote last week, “we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in resentencing [the] defendant to [life without parole]. The trial court rendered a thorough and thoughtful analysis of each Miller factor, the factual findings of which were not clearly erroneous.”
Efran Paredes was a 15-year-old Lakeshore High School student on March 8, 1989 when he took part in an armed robbery at Roger’s Vineland supermarket in St. Joseph. Store manager Rick Tezlaff was shot and killed in the robbery, and Paredes was convicted of murder in his death.
Paredes has maintained his innocence. The state court writes that’s “despite the clear evidence to the contrary.”
