CLEARWATER -- Should a convicted cop killer who was just 16 at the time, get a reduced sentence?
Nicholas Lindsey is currently serving life without parole for the 2011 murder of St. Petersburg Police Officer David Crawford.
But new laws brought Lindsey back to a Pinellas courtroom Friday, asking to have that sentence reduced.
Now 21, Lindsey is considerably more mature looking than he was at 16.
His attorneys wants the court to reduce Lindsey’s sentence to 40 years, because under new law, juveniles can’t be sentenced - as Lindsey was in 2012 - to life without parole.
Judge Thane Covert ruled against Lindsey’s defense argument that the law mandates he reduce the sentence. The judge says it only requires a hearing, and had both sides make their case again.
Prosecutors say Lindsey has not shown improvement behind bars, with 10 different violations, including assault. It shows, they say, a lack of ability to be rehabilitated.
And the offense, they say, was not committed as a youthful mistake, but by a gardened criminal, with a long arrest record.
“It was deliberate, and not attributable to any youthful impulsivity,” said Assistant State Attorney Jim Hellickson.
His defense lawyers say Lindsey can be rehabilitated. That he has gotten his GED while in prison. Taken classes in life after his sentence. And 40 years with a review in 25 is still a long time behind bars, they argued, for a juvenile offender.
“And if your honor does impose less than life, it does not denigrate the position held by Officer Crawford. It does not insult his memory. We are here to find a legal sentence,” said Lindsey’s defense attorney Stacey Schroeder.
In the neighborhood where Lindsey grew up and Officer Crawford died, several people hoped the sentence would be reduced.
“At his age, he needs a second chance. You know? He needs a second chance,” said neighbor Casandra Johnson.
But through tears, Officer Crawford’s daughter, Amanda, told the court a second chance is something her dad, and she will never get.
“I cry when I see a father and daughter dance at a wedding because it serves as a reminder that he and I will never get to dance at my wedding. He’ll never meet his grandchildren and I still have lost a vital part of my life,” she told the judge.
In 2013, Lindsey was denied a similar re-sentencing request.
But the January 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling has given him yet another chance.
Judge Covert said he’ll render a decision in one week, January 27th.
