Convicted murderer released from Arizona prison

By Kelsey Hess, The Republic

An Arizona inmate 44 years into a life sentence for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old was released from prison on Monday based on a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, prosecutors say.

Ray Chatman, 62, was convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery for the 1970 murder of a Phoenix Circle K clerk and was originally given a death sentence for his role in the crime. A 1973 appeal reduced Chatman's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of release, but a pair of Supreme Court decisions within the past decade forced prosecutors to consider a sentence that presented the chance for release, according to a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

A 2005 Supreme Court ruling found that juveniles could not be sentenced to death, and a 2012 decision ensured that juvenile offenders could not be sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of release, according to a County Attorney's Office statement.

Chatman filed for post-conviction relief last year, and Judge Bruce Cohen of Maricopa County Superior Court on Friday approved an agreement that vacated Chatman's original conviction and called for his sentence to be deemed complete upon the entry of his guilty plea to second-degree murder, the statement said.

Chatman made that guilty plea in court on Friday and was released from prison on Monday, county attorney spokesman Jerry Cobb confirmed.

Chatman and Melvin Lee Taylor were convicted for their roles in the March 1970 crime at a Circle K near Sixth Avenue and Baseline Road. The two entered the store armed with a pistol and a rifle. They demanded that five shoppers drop to the floor and that they receive the money in the register drawers. Shots were eventually fired, which is how store clerk Kenneth Meiner died. Chatman and Taylor were found guilty of first-degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of robbery.

Taylor was paroled in 1987 after Gov. Bruce Babbitt commuted his sentence, according to the County Attorney's Office, but prosecutors' records did not indicate that Chatman had ever applied for commutation.

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