ADRIAN – A series of court rulings in recent years involving teenage offenders sentenced to life in prison led to a reprieve Thursday for the man who fatally shot Adrian Police Officer Bobby Williams in 1975.
Paul Coy craft, who was 18 when he killed Williams and was sentenced to life in prison about five months later, received a new sentence Thursday of 40 to 60 years in prison. The term of the sentence dates from the time he was arrested on June 30, 1975. He has already served almost 50 years.
Craft pleaded guilty to open murder, and Lenawee County Circuit Judge Kenneth B. Glaser ruled that he should be convicted under the first-degree murder statute, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down mandatory life sentences for children in the case of Miller v. Alabama. In 2016, in a Louisiana case, the Supreme Court ordered the Miller decision to be applied retroactively, leading to hearings for juveniles across the country sentenced to life in prison.
In 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in a Genesee County case that mandatory life sentences without parole imposed on 18-year-old defendants are categorically disproportionate and thus unconstitutional under the Michigan Constitution, leading to Thursday’s sentencing hearing in Lenawee County Circuit Court. .
After hearing oral arguments from Lenawee County Prosecutor Jackie Wyse, Chief Prosecutor Jennifer Bruggeman and Craft’s attorney, Tina Olson of the State Appellate Defender Office, and reviewing the factors the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered courts to consider when sentencing young defendants, Judge Anna Marie has instituted the new sentence.
“The prosecutor in this case has asked for a sentence of 40 to 100 years, and I understand why they are asking for that sentence, and so are the people in this room,” Anzalone said, referring to many current and former Adrian police officers. officers, other law enforcement personnel and Williams’ family members who were in the stands. “This is not allowed under the ruling and the law in the state of Michigan. If you have a problem with that, you need to discuss it with your state representatives, your senators, and that’s what you lobby for.”
Current law sets the maximum sentence in cases like Craft’s at 60 years. It also says that the minimum can be between 25 and 40 years.
Craft was with two others from Ohio on the morning of June 30, 1975, when they robbed the Clark gas station at the intersection of Russell Road and Occidental Highway in Tecumseh, and one of its customers, before kidnapping the gas station attendant. They were driving through Adrian at 6:25 a.m. when Williams stopped them in the 700 block of West Beecher Street. Williams suspected the car was the one from the robbery.
After speaking with Craft, who was driving, and returning to his patrol car, Williams again approached the suspects’ car. Gerald Deaton, Craft’s 31-year-old stepfather and one of the co-defendants, had handed Craft a .38-caliber revolver and instructed him to shoot the officer. He did so, hitting Williams twice in the abdomen and once in the neck. Then they ran away.
Williams returned fire after being shot, emptying his revolver at the fleeing Dodge Dart, flattening one of his tires.
A nearby resident used the radio in Williams’ patrol car to report the shooting. He was first taken to Bixby Hospital in Adrian before being taken to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, where he died on the operating table.
Craft, Deaton and the third defendant, Harold Huggins, turned left onto Madison Street, which led to a dead end. They fled the car, leaving the gas station attendant unharmed, and tried to enter a house before fleeing into a nearby forest. Adrian police and Lenawee County sheriff’s deputies swarmed the area, finding them near U.S. 223 around 8:15 a.m.
Deaton also pleaded guilty to open murder and was sentenced to life without parole. He died in prison.
Huggins was acquitted of murder, but convicted of armed robbery. He was serving a prison sentence of 5 to 50 years.
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Williams’ brother, Ricky, and one of his fellow officers, Tom Ray, provided victim impact statements Thursday. Ricky Williams told how Bobby served in the Air Force in Vietnam before joining the Adrian Police Department and described the loss and “tremendous heartbreak” his family has lived with since he died. He asked Anzalone to give him the maximum possible sentence.
Ray told the court that June 30, 1975 has become for him one of the days when he will always remember where he was and what he did. He said he believes the state courts made a mistake regarding life sentences for 18-year-olds. He said Craft knew what he was doing and that his fleeing a crime in which they took a hostage before shooting Williams was not the actions of a juvenile. He also asked whether Williams, by shooting at the suspects’ car and flattening a tire, saved the gas station employee’s life.
Olson, Craft’s attorney, said Miller’s decision takes into account situations like Craft’s and is based on adolescent brain science. She said Craft and Huggins, who were 17 at the time, made senseless decisions. Craft growing up in poverty should also be a mitigating factor in determining the sentence, she said. Another state court ruling also requires the court to consider the possibility of rehabilitation, and Craft has shown in prison that he is mature, hard-working and does the charity work he can do in prison. He worked at the prison the entire time, although he is now retired due to health problems, she said.
Craft, who is now 67 and bald with a long, gray beard, said he doesn’t try to make excuses. He said he was an 18-year-old boy who had been told that Deaton had just killed a man in Ohio by shooting him twelve times, and Deaton had threatened to do the same to him. He became emotional at times as he addressed the court via video from Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, where he is incarcerated.
“Nothing I can do can make up for the pain I caused that family, or the damage I caused to the community by taking the life of an officer like Bobby Williams,” he said. “…I promise that if the court sees fit to release me, I will never hurt anyone. That is never a question.”
If he is released on parole, Anzalone said, reading from the probation department’s updated investigative report, Craft plans to live with his sister in Ohio and obtain a commercial driver’s license so he can become a truck driver.
— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.
This article originally appeared in The Daily Telegram: Man who shot Adrian police officer in 1975 gets new sentence
