An Alabama teen was sentenced to 65 years behind bars for murder and theft after he rejected a plea deal that would have given him 25 years in prison.
Nineteen-year-old Lakeith Smith received the tough sentence after Judge Sibley Reynolds said Smith was not remorseful for his crime, according to Miami’s 7 News.
In February 2015, Smith, A’Donte Washinton and four other teenagers broke into two homes. Washington was killed by an officer after he allegedly approached the cop with a gun.
The officer shot and killed Washington, but Smith, along with four other defendants, were charged with Washington’s murder because under Alabama’s accomplice liability law he was killed during the commission of a felony.
Judge Reynolds said that he heard Smith say, “I don’t have time for this,” and laughed at the judge’s comments during sentencing, according to reports.
Smith was sentenced to felony murder, armed burglary, second-degree theft and third-degree assault.
“You just don’t get it do you?” the judge said. “When I called the case earlier, you said you ain’t got time for this, so I didn’t know if you had time for this now?”
According to the Montgomery Adviser, the liability law “holds co-defendants can be guilty of murder if a death occurs when they are committing a crime, even if the accomplice is not the person who directly caused the death.”
