Lansing — A man who’s been incarcerated for half a century because of his role in a 1976 South Haven grocery store robbery and shooting will have a chance at parole under a new ruling out of the Michigan Supreme Court.
The Tuesday decision opens a pathway for parole not only for Edwin Langston, but also for “scores” of other individuals sentenced to life without the possibility of parole without evidence of malice prior to 1980, according to Langston’s appeal.
Such sentences, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in a 5-1 opinion, constitute “cruel or unusual punishment” if the jury wasn’t instructed on malice as an element of the crime or if a prosecutor can prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the defendant’s jury would have found evidence of malice.
“As applied here, Langston has established that the jury in his case was not instructed on malice,” the high court ruled. “But the prosecution has not yet had an opportunity to meet its burden under the test we announce today.”
The high court remanded Langston’s 50-year-old case back to Van Buren County Circuit Court to determine whether the prosecutor can establish the jury five decades ago could have found malice. If the prosecutor cannot make that finding, the defendant must be given an opportunity for parole.
The decision represents the most recent high court action chipping away at lifetime sentences without parole in Michigan.
The court split 5-1, with the sole Republican-nominated justice, Brian Zahra, dissenting and Democratic-nominated Justice Kimberly Thomas abstaining because of prior involvement in Langston’s case.
Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh concurred in part and dissented in part, finding it was enough to find that a jury was not instructed on the evidence of malice to find a life without parole sentence unconstitutional.
Zahra, in his dissent, argued the court was “bending over backward” to create another court-wrangled expansion of “the constitutional protections afforded under Michigan’s prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment.”
The test the court puts forward for assessing whether to allow parole relies, in this case, on half-century-old witness statements, memories and evidence, Zahra wrote.
“Where the evidentiary record has so atrophied, reopening the factual record serves no truth-seeking function and, instead, affirmatively threatens it,” Zahra wrote.
While appealing Langston’s case, appellate lawyers said there are “scores of elderly men and women” still serving life sentences in Michigan for crimes committed before 1980 where there was no intent to kill, meaning Tuesday’s decision could have a wider effect on decades-old Michigan cases.
In 1980, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in a separate case, People v. Aaron, that malice must be established as an element of any murder conviction. But the People v. Aaron decision applied only prospectively, for cases decided after 1980.
Langston appealed his lifetime sentence in 2020, 40 years after the 1980 decision, based largely on two grounds: That the 1980 decision should be applied retroactively to cases decided prior to 1980; and that life in prison without the possibility of parole for a murder conviction, where there is no establishment of malice, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday on the “cruel and unusual” grounds related to sentencing, but it did not need to weigh in on the retroactivity of the Aaron decision in order to provide relief.
Langston, who is now 73, was accused of aiding and abetting Ronald Wilson, who robbed the Maple Street Grocery in South Haven and shot the store owner, Arretta Ingraham, 50 years ago, on Dec. 1, 1975.
Langston was believed to have given Wilson information on who was in the store prior to Wilson entering it. He is also believed to have helped Wilson after the robbery, according to Langston’s appeal.
When Langston was convicted, according to his appeal, the jury instructions required no establishment of malice related to the murder, but only to the robbery.
Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office had rejected the idea that Langston’s case failed to support a finding of malice such that his nonparolable lifetime sentence for felony murder should be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Langston plotted with Wilson regarding the armed robbery, scouted the store and helped hide evidence afterward, the AG’s office filing said.
“While the murder of Arretta Ingraham was not planned, a jury could well have believed that Langston acted with a depraved heart, one in which the natural tendency of his conduct was to cause death or great bodily harm, as Wilson shot Ingraham in the heart during the planned robbery,” Nessel’s office said.
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan high court order makes parole possible for ‘scores’ of lifers
Reporting by Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
