Ohio teen faces life sentence for killing three at high school

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio teenager faces life in prison when he is sentenced on Tuesday for killing three students and wounding three others in a shooting rampage last year at a high school in Chardon, Ohio, a small town east of Cleveland.

T.J. Lane, 18, pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him at a hearing last month, one day before the anniversary of his attack on students in the high school cafeteria. He was to be tried as an adult.

Because he was 17 at the time of the shooting, he is ineligible for the death penalty. He faces a maximum of life without parole.

The sentencing before Geauga County Judge David Fuhry is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) at the courthouse in Chardon, a rural community about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

Lane killed Demetrius Hewlin, 16; Russell King Jr., 17; and Daniel Parmertor, 16. He wounded Nick Walczak, who was paralyzed from the waist down, Nate Mueller and Joy Rickers.

Prosecutors had said Lane was taken into custody shortly after the shooting and quickly confessed to firing off 10 rounds from a .22-caliber pistol at the students in the cafeteria.

After Lane's guilty plea, Geauga County prosecutor James Flaiz told reporters his office planned to comment on a possible motive for the killings after the sentencing.

Ian Friedman, who represents Lane, told reporters he did not know if Lane would speak on his own behalf at the sentencing.

Lane's attack was one of a series of mass shootings in the United States last year that included a rampage at a Connecticut school that left 26 people dead, including 20 children.

The Newtown, Connecticut, massacre sparked national outrage and calls from President Barack Obama to ban military-style assault weapons and to limit the capacity of ammunition clips to 10 rounds to curb gun violence.

The day after Lane pleaded guilty to the charges, Chardon students clad in red-and-black school colors walked in a procession from the school to the town square to lay wreaths beneath framed photographs of their slain classmates in a ceremony that marked one year since the shootings.

(Editing by David Bailey, Barbara Goldberg and Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-teen-faces-life-sentence-killing-three-high-100047767.html

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