Yesterday (March 17, 2021) in South Dakota’s Sixth Circuit Court, Judge Margo Northrup denied Shawn Springer’s motion to correct illegal sentence regarding Springer’s sentence for his involvement in the 1996 kidnapping, robbery and murder of Pierre cab driver Michael Hare by Paul Jensen and Springer.
Springer and Jensen were teenagers at the time.
Stanley County State’s Attorney Tom Maher says Springer’s latest appeal centered on the possibility that Paul Jensen may be released on parole sooner than Spring. Maher says Springer is the older of the two teens and helped plan and carry out the plan and was present when Jensen murdered Hare with a pistol; the two fled the scene in Hare’s taxi cab and were arrested by law enforcement.
Maher says following the violent killing, charges were filed and both teens were transferred to adult court. In 1996, Springer pled guilty to kidnapping, and faced a maximum sentence up to life imprisonment, and was sentenced to 261 years in prison by Judge Max Gors. The judge noted that under his sentence at some time in the future, after Springer is 49, that Springer would become parole eligible and could start asking the parole board to be released from prison.
The other teen involved, Paul Jensen, went to trial, was found guilty, and was sentenced under the existing law to life imprisonment without parole. Maher says later, Jensen’s life sentence was overturned following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 opinion in Miller v. Alabama which held a mandatory life sentence without parole for a juvenile is unconstitutional. The Miller v. Alabama decision was determined to be retroactive and applicable to Jensen’s life sentence; and following a re-sentencing hearing, Jensen’s sentence was reduced from life to a sentence of 200 years by Judge John Brown. Maher says by contrast, Springer had received a discretionary sentence of years with parole eligibility, and therefore, not invalidated by Miller v. Alabama.
Springer will become eligible to start seeking release from the SD Parole Board in 2029. Jensen becomes eligible to ask for parole later this year. The South Dakota Parole Board decides whether a prisoner who is eligible and applies for release on parole, is in fact released on parole.
Springer has filed several appeals in various courts fighting his 1996 sentence, which have been denied by the courts.
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