GOSHEN -- The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld Friday the conviction and sentence of a boy who was 13 when he participated in a murder.
A jury in Elkhart Circuit Court convicted Dentrell Brown in the death of Gerald Wenger, who was gunned down in Elkhart March 8, 2008.
The trial in Goshen happened in February, and in March, Judge Terry Shewmaker sentenced Brown to 55 years in prison and five years on probation.
Brown appealed both the conviction and the sentence and the case had been scheduled for oral arguments. The appeals court decided the case without the arguments, though.
Brown and Joshua Love, who was 19 at the time, were tried and convicted together.
Wenger wanted to buy cocaine and the pair sold him fake drugs, according to testimony in the case. When Wenger figured out the drugs were fake, he complained, escalating into a fight. Brown hit Wenger with a handgun, which fired, grazing Wenger, according to testimony at the trial.
Love then shot and killed Wenger, according to testimony, and they left him to die along the sidewalk.
"These facts depict the particularly heinous murder of an unarmed man after he discovered the defendants' scheme to sell him counterfeit drugs. Because of this, we cannot say (Brown's) sentence is inappropriate," the three-judge panel of the appeals court wrote in their ruling.