A convicted murderer who shot and killed a man following an argument outside a Lynn nightclub in 2009 has been granted parole.
On Jan. 30, 2012, an Essex County Superior Court jury found Darkens Bonnett, now 35, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Vincent Gaskins. He received the then-mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole.
But in 2024, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled it unconstitutional for adults aged 18 to 20 to receive such a sentence based on recent scientific findings that the human brain is still developing during this period in life. As Bonnett was 18 at the time of the shooting, the court’s decision made him newly eligible for parole…