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July 2, 2007

High court upholds life sentences for carjacker Day

The state Supreme Court has upheld the murder convictions and the life without parole sentence for one of the five men convicted in the 2000 carjacking and killing of two college students.

Kenneth D. Day, of Providence, was sentenced to four consecutive terms of life without parole Aug. 16, 2004, in the June 2000 murder and carjacking of college students Amy Shute and Jason Burgeson. He was the fifth and final man convicted.

The court found that Day's sentence of life in prison without the eligibility for parole was appropriate, but it did overturn three charges against Day: two counts of robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit carjacking.

The court upheld the convictions for two counts of murder, two counts of carjacking resulting in death and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery.

Shute, 21, of Coventry, and Burgeson, 20, of Lakeville, Mass., were kidnapped from downtown Providence after a night of dancing, and driven to a golf course under construction on the Providence/Johnston line. According to testimony, Gregory J. Floyd shot the students in the head as they begged for their lives while Day urged Floyd to pull the trigger.

At sentencing, prosecutor Gerard B. Sullivan said, "We can empty a dictionary of adjectives and then search a thesaurus for synonyms and not come close to describing this crime."

Day appealed, saying in part that the trial judge, Superior Court Justice Joseph F. Rodgers Jr., had exceeded his authority in imposing four sentences of life without parole and that his conviction for murder and the underlying carjacking charge had violated the legal system's double jeopardy clause.

The four others pleaded guilty in federal court to carjacking charges. Three are serving life sentences, and one is serving a 30-year sentence.

Posted by Jack Perry  at 12:27 PM | Permalink

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