The Michigan Supreme Court has cracked open the door to a new review of a high-profile Southfield shooting case, sending it back to the state Court of Appeals and putting a 50-year prison term under fresh scrutiny. At issue is how Michigan’s sentencing guidelines and habitual-offender enhancements were used to arrive at that lengthy punishment.
The defendant, 30-year-old Tre Elexender Law, pleaded guilty to charges that included discharge of a firearm at or into a building, along with related counts. In 2024, Oakland County Circuit Judge Michael W. Warren sentenced him as a habitual offender to 50 years in prison, with a concurrent 25-year term for being a felon in possession of a firearm and a separate two-year sentence for a felony-firearm conviction. Law is currently housed at the St. Louis Correctional Facility, with his earliest possible discharge date listed as May 20, 2034, according to The Oakland Press.
Law first took his case to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which in 2025 rejected his appeal and concluded that his arguments lacked merit. He continued to challenge how his sentencing guidelines were scored. However, yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court sent the Southfield shooting case back to the Court of Appeals, according to The Oakland Press. The high court’s order does not change Law’s sentence on its own, but it does require the appellate judges to revisit the legal issues he raised.
What the remand could mean
The Court of Appeals is now expected to take another look at whether the trial court correctly applied Michigan’s sentencing guidelines and the habitual-offender enhancement in Law’s case. If the judges find a scoring error or a problem with the procedure, they could order Law to be resentenced. If they conclude there was no error, his current sentence will likely remain in place…