Efran Paredes has once again lost a bid to be released from prison. He was resentenced Friday by Berrien County Judge Charles LaSata after the Michigan Appeals Court ordered he be resentenced back in March. The Berrien County Prosecutor’s Office tells us the new sentence is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Efran Paredes was a 15-year-old Lakeshore High School student on March 8, 1989 when he took part in an armed robbery at Roger’s Vineland supermarket in St. Joseph. Store manager Rick Tezlaff was shot and killed in the robbery, and Paredes was convicted of murder in his death. Paredes was sentenced to life in prison without parole, although he says he is innocent. He’s appealed his sentence several times. In a statement sent to us before his Friday resentencing, Paredes said the “U.S. Supreme Court made it abundantly clear eleven years ago that people convicted of capital offenses when they were minors can only receive a life without parole sentence if it can be established that they are irreparably corrupt or permanently incorrigible…My body of work and accomplishments spanning 34 years of my incarceration provides substantial and compelling documented evidence I don’t meet that criteria and I should instead receive a term-of-year sentence.”
