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Ruling overturns life sentence without parole in '94 killing

Gavel shot
Posted at 10:25 PM, Jul 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-07-11 17:22:11-04

In a story July 9 about a ruling in an Arizona homicide case, The Associated Press erroneously reported the vote by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges. The vote was 9-2.

A corrected version of the story is below:

PHOENIX (AP) - In a story July 9 about a ruling in an Arizona homicide case, The Associated Press erroneously reported the vote by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges. The vote was 9-2.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 9-2 ruling Tuesday orders a second resentencing for Riley Briones Jr., saying that the judge who resentenced Briones in 2016 focused on the crime and didn't adequately consider Briones' potential for rehabilitation.

Briones was resentenced because he was under age 18 when a restaurant clerk was killed during a robbery and the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that juveniles generally couldn't be sentenced to mandatory life terms without possibility of parole.

Briones asked for leniency, saying he had a dysfunctional childhood environment, wasn't involved in prison gangs and didn't shoot the clerk.