Send Earnest Home

sentenced Earnest to life imprisonment for the first-degree murder conviction. Jackson’s conviction solely rested on the testimony of eyewitness Elexsis Fulton. The identifying facts were slim: a man who was “dark-skinned with braided hair and a blue “FUBU” brand shirt.”

After a series of appeals, Earnest's life sentence was vacated because he was sentence to a life term at the age of 17 years old. Under a new SCOTUS decision, this violated the 8th Amendment (Miller v Alabama). The court went on to state, "But we still have a person here who is dead, and your client, the defendant, was convicted of his murder, and so I think anything but a substantial period of incarceration would be inappropriate." The court stated that it had crafted a sentence that would allow Earnest to work toward a future release after a substantial additional period of incarceration. Jackson was resentenced to 60 to 80 years' imprisonment with credit for the 6,044 days that he had served. The court calculated that Earnest would be eligible for parole in about 13.5 years.