OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa man who was 16 in 1994 when he fatally shot a 15-year-old classmate after the two argued over a girl has been granted parole.
The Ottumwa Courier reports that the Iowa Board of Parole has decided to release Michael Patrick Leon Coffman after a hearing Wednesday.
Coffman, who is now 42, was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Jeremy Allen at Ottumwa High School and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who kill can’t automatically be sentenced to life with no chance of parole. A separate 2016 ruling allowed that precedent to be applied to cases that came before 2012.
Those rulings led Coffman’s sentence to be changed in 2017 to allow for the possibility of parole.
Wapello County Attorney Reuben Neff objected to releasing Coffman, telling the parole board prior to its hearing that Coffman “callously” killed Allen in broad daylight. Neff also cited Coffman’s previous legal troubles, including a plea bargain to second-degree robbery, originally a first-degree robbery charge.
“Though we should attempt rehabilitation as much as possible when it comes to juveniles, there are certain situationally specific instances where rehabilitation is statistically unlikely,” Neff said Thursday.
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