RE-SENTENCING BOBBY GENE GRIFFIN IN BERRIEN COUNTY’S OLDEST “JUVENILE LIFER” CASE

ST. JOSEPH – Another of Berrien County’s “juvenile lifers” has been resentenced in Berrien County Trial Court. Former Benton Harbor resident Bobby Gene Griffin was resentenced last week and is expected to soon be released after serving nearly 50 years in prison for a 1967 murder.
Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic said that Griffin is the second of 12 “juvenile lifers” to be resentenced since the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared it unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole except in rare instances.
The 2012 Miller vs. Alabama ruling by the Supreme Court opened the door for hundreds of “juvenile lifers” in Michigan to have the chance to be resentenced and have the hope of getting out of prison at some point. A subsequent 2016 Supreme Court ruling made the change retroactive to all who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles.
The Supreme Court ruled that a life without parole sentence is no longer mandatory for offenders who committed crimes as juveniles. The high court said the life without parole sentence should only be handed down in rare cases where there is evidence of “irreparable corruption.”
The court said lower courts had to look at a variety of mitigating factors including a juvenile’s school, criminal and mental health records as well as whether the juvenile had been in an abusive home environment and the development of the adolescent brain to appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions.
Last week, Berrien County Trial Judge Scott Schofield sentenced Griffin to a prison term of 40 to 60 years. As Griffin has credit for nearly 50 years already served, he is immediately eligible for parole and release from prison. The Griffin case was the county’s oldest “juvenile lifer” case.
Griffin, now 66, was 16 when he and three others broke into the home of an elderly Benton Harbor woman on October 19, 1967. Minnie Peaples was 84 at the time and the widow of Charles Peaples, a former Benton Harbor police chief and Berrien County undersheriff.
Although the intent originally was to rob the woman, Griffin beat Peaples to death and sexually assaulted her while others searched the home for valuables. He was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and two counts of felony murder for the burglary and robbery and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Sepic said last week that while his office had originally sought to keep Griffin in prison without a chance for parole, they agreed to a sentence of a term of years instead of life without parole because they felt they couldn’t succeed in getting life without parole due to the stringencies of the Miller requirements.
“Though the homicide was heinous, the Miller case requires so much more to analyze than simply the facts of the murder,” Sepic said. “So because he had so many years in and in the recent decade has been a relatively good inmate, we felt we could not succeed on maintaining the life without parole sentence.”
“Going from life without parole to a term of years, Michigan’s statute requires a 60 year maximum and a minimum between 25 and 40 years,” he added. “So he is immediately ‘eligible’ for parole. It is now up to the parole board to decide on parole.”
Sepic said Mrs. Peaples’ grandchildren were disappointed in the decision to sentence Griffin to a term of years and not life without parole in prison.
At his sentencing last week, Griffin expressed remorse, calling his actions in 1967 as “sheer stupidity” and apologizing to Mrs. Peaples’ relatives.
The only other Berrien County “juvenile lifer” to be resentenced since the 2012 Supreme Court ruling was Dakotah Eliason of Niles. Eliason was convicted in 2010 of killing his step grandfather, Jesse Miles, at the Miles home near Buchanan. Eliason was 14 at the time of the murder and 15 when he was originally sentenced later that year.
It was also Judge Schofield who resentenced Eliason. The judge ruled in 2015 that there were enough mitigating factors in the Eliason case to warrant a sentence of a term of years in prison and not life without parole. He ruled that there was a developmental disparity between “an adolescent male’s feeling brain and thinking brain.”
Eliason ended up being resentenced to a term of 35 years to 60 years in prison for first-degree murder and a consecutive term of two years in prison for possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Sepic said the 10 other former Berrien County “juvenile lifers” will be resentenced in coming years. He said the remaining 10 cases are waiting for a ruling from the Michigan Supreme Court on who should decide the “Miller” issues. Defense lawyers around the state have argued that a jury and not a judge should decide the Miller issues and do the resentencing.
Other “juvenile lifers” from Berrien County are Tommy Edward Richards of Benton Harbor, Efran Paredes, Jr. of Lincoln Township, Leonard Dee Williams of Benton Harbor, Christopher Michael Tobar of Benton Harbor, David Lamar Clayton of Niles, Allan Gene-Reeder Martin, Jr. of Benton Harbor, Anthony Jovan Givens of Union Pier, Mark Anthony Abbatoy of Bridgman, Anthony Robert DePalma of Bridgman and Dequarius Devontae Stewart of Benton Harbor.
Sepic said last fall that he assigned each of the remaining “juvenile lifer” cases to one of his prosecutors. He noted that there’s a lot to consider when it comes to making a resentencing recommendation including the facts of each case and the social and family background of each defendant.