Louisiana man ordered to return to prison

LAKE CHARLES, La. — A Louisiana appeals court reversed a trial court’s “illegally lenient” sentence of a criminal defendant to 20 years at hard labor for armed robbery as a convicted habitual offender; the law required at least 66 years. Further, the appellate panel says the lower court should not have reduced the sentence to time served, nor released him, and he is “ordered to serve the remainder of his original sentence.” At a 2023 hearing, the trial judge said, “Either we believe in rehabilitation, or we don’t.”