Idaho man serving life sentence for murder to be resentenced

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho man who was a teenager when he received a life sentence for killing his mother will be resentenced following two U.S. Supreme Court rulings about juvenile prison sentencing.

Ethan Windom, 28, will have the chance to challenge the life sentence he received after stabbing and beating his 42-year-old mother, Judy Windom, to death in 2007 when he was 16 years old.

He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at the age of 17.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court said that ruling had to be applied retroactively.

In response, the Idaho Supreme Court last summer ordered Ethan Windom be resentenced.

The state appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the petition last month.

Lawyers from both sides of the case will meet with District Judge Cheri Copsey, who originally sentenced Ethan Windom.

Ethan Windom’s resentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled.

Judy Windom was a special education teacher at Eagle High School.

She was attacked by her son on Jan. 24, 2007 at her Boise home, according to the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office.

Ethan Windom, then a junior at Borah High School, hit his mother in the head with a club he made by attaching weights to one end of a dumbbell and also stabbed her multiple times, prosecutors said.

At the time of sentencing, Copsey said Ethan Windom was too dangerous to ever leave prison.

Ethan Windom has previously argued that his youth and immaturity were not taken into consideration in his sentencing.

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