The Indiana Supreme Court upheld a former Gary teenager’s 110-year prison sentence Wednesday for a 1996 East Chicago triple homicide after years of winding appeals.
McKinley Kelly, now 46, was convicted of fatally killing Vincent Ray Jr., 20, Maurice Hobson, 21, and Karl Jackson, 20.
He was 17 when sentenced. Lake Superior Judge Richard Conroy set aside the murder count in Ray’s death, sentencing Kelly to 55 years each for Jackson and Hobson. The maximum for murder is 65 years.
The shootings took place Jan. 8, 1996, outside East Chicago’s Calumet Housing Development in the 400 block of E. 151st Street.
Police said the defendants had a dispute earlier that night with a group of men that included Jackson. The incident occurred in the Hub Lounge, 4859 Melville, East Chicago.
The defendants later spotted Jackson and the other two victims outside the housing project in a driveway. Kelly, who was armed with a .38-caliber handgun, confronted Jackson. Kelly shot Jackson and Hobson several times. Co-defendant Leo Dent, now 45, shot Hobson and Ray with a sawed-off shotgun.
In a 5-0 decision, Justice Derek Molter wrote that the court allowed Kelly to amend an appeal, partly because the scientific understanding of how a juvenile’s brain works has since changed.
Ultimately, justices declined to resentence him.
Kelly argued he was essentially serving a life sentence and may die before he is released.
A judge “cannot reliably determine at the time of sentencing whether a child is irredeemable,” Molter wrote, characterizing Kelly’s argument.
Molter noted the law has changed – minors can’t get the death penalty, or life without parole except for a homicide, and are barred from automatic back-to-back life sentences. Life without parole is reserved only for teens who are “irreparably corrupt.” He also wrote in recent years, the state legislature has passed a law to let minors have their prison sentences reviewed after 20 years.
The state of Indiana countered that the scientific concepts weren’t “new” and the trial judge already accounted for how young Kelly was.
Molter wrote Kelly wasn’t sentenced to life without parole. He was given a finite prison term, which wouldn’t be grounds for resentencing.
“Simply put, (a life without parole) sentence is lengthier than Kelly’s sentence because Kelly’s sentence allows for Kelly’s eventual release,” he wrote.
“Nothing about the circumstances of Kelly’s offenses suggests that the presumptive sentence he received was inappropriate,” Molter wrote. “He initiated the confrontation that ended in his two victims’ deaths. He continued firing into Jackson after Jackson collapsed. And he killed Hobson for seemingly no reason besides the fact that Hobson asked why Kelly had killed Jackson.”
His earliest release date is in 2048 – when he is 69.
Indiana law at the time required inmates to serve 50% of their sentence.
“We observed in (a prior case) that release in one’s mid-to-late sixties provides a reasonable hope for a life outside prison,” Molter later wrote.
Dent’s release date is in 2042.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
mcolias@post-trib.com
