Man Who Shot 62-Year-Old Store Clerk In The Back Resentenced, 'System Needs Reform'
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (CBS4) - A man who was sentenced to life in prison for murder and had the ruling overturned has been resentenced.
According to the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, John Doubleday was resentenced for killing an Aurora 7-Eleven clerk in 2006.
"In 2008, a jury convicted Doubleday of killing Jutte Gallegos Burton, 62. She died of a shotgun blast to the back," the district attorney's office said in a statement.
A judge sentenced Doubleday to life in prison for Burton's murder, but the Colorado Supreme Court overturned that sentence on a technicality this year.
On Monday a judge resentenced Doubleday to 30 years in prison.
"Obviously the sentence is up to the judge," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Rich Orman. "The judge could impose a range of from 16 years to 48 years. The judge looked at this matter and at the defendant seriously and exercised his discretion … the judge found that this offender has matured in prison. I am not going to criticize the judge -- he has to make his own decision.
"Be that as it may, it is my opinion that this murderer deserved the maximum sentence. He walked into a convenience store and gunned down a peaceful, hard-working, harmless 62-year-old woman by shooting her in the back. Like a coward. A gutless coward."
"Shotgunning a 62-year-old woman in the back deserves the maximum sentence to prison that law will allow. This was not that sentence. Coloradans should be aware that our sentences to prison are hollow and the numbers matter very little anymore," District Attorney George Brauchler added.
Brauchler said the sentencing is evidence the system is in need of reform.
