State supreme court stays Moore decision
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
The Ohio Supreme Court agreed, in a 5-2 decision Wednesday, to delay ordering the resentencing of a man who received a 112-year sentence for a rape he was convicted of as a juvenile while his case is appealed.
The move was requested by the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office to allow prosecutors to appeal the sentence handed down in 2002 to Brandon Moore, 30, so the case can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state high court ruled Dec. 22 that Moore’s sentence is unconstitutional because of a 2010 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that stated sentences that exceed the life expectancy of a person handed down to a juvenile are unconstitutional.
Moore received maximum consecutive sentences from Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of the county’s common pleas court after he was convicted as an adult for crimes he committed Aug. 21, 2001, when he was 15.
The state supreme court overturned the sentence and sent the case back to Judge Krichbaum for resentencing.
Moore was one of three people convicted of the rape and kidnapping of a then-21-year-old woman who had arrived for the midnight shift at her Detroit Avenue workplace. A fourth person pleaded guilty before the trial began.