A Boston man who was 20 when he killed a teenager in Dorchester nearly two decades ago was granted parole by the state’s parole board after suddenly becoming eligible thanks to a 2024 court decision.
A Suffolk Superior Court jury convicted Patrick Grier of first-degree murder in June 2010 for killing De’Andre Barboza in December 2008. Grier was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the required sentence for first-degree murder convictions in Massachusetts.
But Grier and many others became eligible for parole in 2024 when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that sentences of life in prison without parole for emerging adults — those between 18 and 20 — were unconstitutional. The decision has proved controversial, with some families describing the process as a “nightmare.”…