By Kara Berg, kberg@detroitnews.com
Oakland County prosecutors plan to consider fighting to uphold life without parole sentences for 16 people eligible for resentencing for a murder they committed.
The Michigan Supreme Court found in 2022 that mandatory life without parole sentences for 18-year-olds violates the constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and in 2025 found the same for 19- and 20-year-olds. That means anyone who was an 18, 19 or 20-year-old when they committed a crime and later given a mandatory life without parole sentence is eligible to be resentenced.
When Oakland County reviewed 95 cases for 19- and 20-year-olds sentenced to mandatory life without parole, Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a news release Tuesday that she found 16 cases where she has filed motions seeking additional information so she can consider asking the court to uphold a life without parole sentence.
“Michigan law requires the prosecution to overcome a rebuttable presumption that life without parole is unconstitutional, but provides almost no means for the prosecution to obtain relevant information prior to filing a motion seeking life without parole (LWOP),” according to prosecution motions filed in Oakland County Circuit Court.
Among the cases McDonald is seeking to uphold a life without parole sentence is for Aaron Stinchcombe, who, along with another person, raped and killed two 12-year-old girls, Cassandra Fiolek and Jennifer Wicks, in 1995, according to the prosecutor’s office. Stinchcombe has been cited for 37 instances of misconduct during his time in prison.
“The brutal murders of Cassandra Fiolek and Jennifer Wicks are every parent’s worst nightmare,” McDonald said in a statement. “The violence was shocking and depraved. Aaron Stinchcombe was a habitual offender when he committed this heinous crime and his record while incarcerated suggests nothing has changed. It feels like common sense that Stinchcombe never should be released from prison.”
The remaining 79 people who prosecutors determined they would not seek to uphold the life without parole sentence for will have to be resentenced to a term of years.
“The Supreme Court created a very high burden to maintain these life sentences,” McDonald said in a statement. “Life without parole is reserved for only the worst crimes and is never given lightly. There are certainly a handful of these cases where resentencing seems appropriate. Unfortunately, with too many of these cases, we risk retraumatizing victims by allowing their loved one’s killer a chance at freedom because the burden placed on prosecutors and lower court judges is too high to keep them locked up.”