Jennifer Pruitt
Jennifer Pruitt (Michigan Department of Cotrrtections photo)
Jennifer Pruitt was 16 when she was arrested in the 1992 Oakland County in the fatal stabbing of an elderly neighbor, Elmer Heichel, 75, during an armed robbery of his home.
Pruitt, now 41, is serving a life sentence without parole at the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti. She's been behind bars for 24 years even though she was not in the same room when the neighbor was murdered. Authorities said she used her knowledge and friendship with Heichel to get her and another woman invited inside and set him up to be robbed, the Detroit News reports.
On Thursday, she'll be resentenced in Oakland County Circuit Court as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared sentencing a person younger than 18 to life in prison without parole was “cruel and unusual punishment” for juveniles, reports Mike Martindale of The Detroit News.
Beginning this year, prosecutors are required to submit lists of juvenile lifers and file legal motions to resentence those they fee still deserve life without parole.
She could get paroled soon.
But Assistant Prosecutor Tricia Dare has argued that Pruitt should serve a minimum 40 years in prison and is seeking a 40-60-year sentence, which wouldn’t make her eligible for parole for at least another 15 years.
