In 2013, a jury convicted Patty Lamoureux of conspiracy to commit robbery and felony murder. She's not the actual killer, but, again, felony murder, so she receives a hefty sentence. Long.
As in: LWOP. Life without the possibility of parole.
Can't get much longer.
In 2015, the Court of Appeal concluded the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s finding that
Ms. Lamoreaux had an intent to kill or acted with reckless indifference to human life, which meant that LWOP wasn't an option. So it remanded for resentencing, at which point Ms. Lamoreaux gets 25 to life.
Still long, but better than LWOP.
Then the Legislature passes Senate Bill 1437, which allows people sentenced to murder who weren't the "actual killer" to apply for resentencing. So Ms. Lamoreaux files the relevant petition in 2019. The trial court held that the statute was unconstitutional, but a divided panel of the Court of Appeal reversed and remanded.
And on remand, Ms. Lamoreaux gets resentenced to . . . six years.
Which in turn meant she immediately got released from prison, since with good conduct credits, she'd already served her full sentence. (Indeed, she was already out on bail at this point, since that's what it was looking like after the Court of Appeal's opinion.)
So initially sentenced to LWOP, in the end, Ms. Lamoreaux only serves six years or so.
A pretty big turnaround.
