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Iowa man convicted of murder as a teen granted parole

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December 17th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man who was 16 in 1994 when he fatally shot a 15-year-old classmate after the two argued over a girl has been granted parole. The Ottumwa Courier reports that the Iowa Board of Parole has decided to release Michael Patrick Leon Coffman after a hearing Wednesday. Coffman, who is now 42, was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Jeremy Allen at Ottumwa High School and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who kill can’t automatically be sentenced to life with no chance of parole. That led Coffman’s sentence to be changed in 2017 to allow for the possibility of parole.