Dominic Culpepper was a fourteen year old from Florida when he would murder another teen
According to court documents Dominic Culpepper thought that the victim had stolen a pound of marijuana from him. Dominic and two other youths would confront the victim and it quickly turned violent as Culpepper beat the victim to death using a baseball bat
Dominic Culpepper would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to life however his sentence would later be reduced to forty years
Dominic Culpepper Photos
Dominic Culpepper Now
| DC Number: | S11166 |
|---|---|
| Name: | CULPEPPER, DOMINIC |
| Race: | ALL OTHERS/UNKNOWN |
| Sex: | MALE |
| Birth Date: | 03/04/1987 |
| Initial Receipt Date: | 05/17/2002 |
| Current Facility: | DESOTO ANNEX |
| Current Custody: | MEDIUM |
| Current Release Date: | 12/14/2037 |
Dominic Culpepper Appeal
Sentenced to life in prison at 15 years old for beating another Sarasota boy to death with a baseball bat, Dominic Culpepper has been handed one more chance of freedom by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Culpepper, now 25, is one of an estimated 2,500 juveniles nationwide who received mandatory life sentences without parole — sentences that were struck down as cruel and unusual punishment by the high court on Monday.
The catch: The ruling requires the prisoners to be resentenced, but lower court judges can still hold hearings, weigh the evidence and in the end resentence them to life in prison without parole. The Supreme Court ruling only requires the judges to consider other possible sentences.
Nonetheless, the ruling sparked optimism from the inmates and their parents, who have been hearing rumblings about it for months.
“I have been very disappointed with the legal system,” said Culpepper’s mother, Jane Culpepper, of Parrish. “I considered him a child at the time. Putting him away for life in prison? How absurd can that be?
“I do not have any confidence in the legal system generally speaking. But now that this has taken the plunge it has taken now, I see greater things to come.”
Others are cringing. The Supreme Court decision was 5-4. In an angry dissenting opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. argued that easing punishments for murder is not necessarily a step toward a more decent society.
In the summer of 2001, Culpepper had stolen a pound of marijuana and sold about half of it before it was stolen from him by another teenager, prosecutors alleged during his two-week trial.
Prosecutors said Culpepper enlisted two other boys to help him get the teenager accused of stealing the marijuana, 16-year-old Wesley McCool.
They lured McCool back to Culpepper’s house, where they surprised him and Culpepper attacked, striking McCool about 15 times with the bat, according to trial testimony.
It remains to be seen whether Culpepper will ever get out of prison.
But when Jane Culpepper last visited her son on Saturday, she says they discussed what he wants to do when he gets out.
“I don’t think that Dominic ever thought in his heart that ‘this was the end of my life,'” she said. “No. I had to help him build his faith all the time.”
Sarasota attorney Derek Byrd, recently installed as the president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, estimated that the high court ruling will apply to about two dozen cases in Florida.
Making progress
Byrd, who represented one of Culpepper’s co-defendants at trial, said that Culpepper is a good candidate for a reduced sentence.
In pretrial negotiations, prosecutors had offered Culpepper a 25-year sentence. Instead, Culpepper went to trial, was found guilty and received a mandatory minimum life sentence without parole.
Culpepper’s age at the time of the crime, 14, is a factor that the judge will likely consider at Culpepper’s rehearing.
Judges will also weigh how the prisoner has acted since being incarcerated, Byrd said. An inmate with a clean record is showing that he can reform.
“I think that is persuasive to a judge,” Byrd said. “Frankly, it should be. He did something terrible, but he’s still redeemable.”
The defense lawyer’s group will arrange for attorneys to represent the prisoners for free in their resentencing hearings, Byrd said, though the prisoners may opt to hire their own attorneys.
Byrd does not expect a change in the sentence of Shawn Tyson, convicted this spring of shooting and killing two British tourists whom he tried to rob. Tyson was 16 at the time of the crime.
“They found him guilty of a double homicide,” Byrd said. “Chances are pretty good that a judge will still give him a life sentence.”
Assistant State Attorney Ed Brodsky would not comment on the specifics of either the Tyson or Culpepper cases, other than to say that the State Attorney’s Office only presses first-degree murder charges against juveniles who have committed heinous crimes.
The Supreme Court ruling gives judges more latitude in juvenile sentencing decisions.
But “we still think, at the end of the day, juveniles will be receiving life sentences if they committed a heinous murder,” Brodsky said.
Attorneys familiar with the cases say it will take at least a year for the resentencings to occur.
Culpepper’s mother says she hopes the judge considers the progress her son has made since his trial.
Dominic Culpepper was baptized in a juvenile detention facility in Vero Beach, his mother said, and now leads Bible study classes. She says he has a GED, is a certified teacher’s aide at Hardee Correctional Institution and is working toward a bachelor’s degree in psychology through Ashworth College, a Georgia-based distance education school. Culpepper also started a writer’s group in his prison, among other projects that keep him focused on rehabilitation.