A man sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 murder of a Miami Central High School student now knows exactly when he could walk free. Jonathan Sawyer, now 45, had his life sentence reduced to 40 years followed by 10 years of probation, meaning he could be released as early as 2038 after completing a two-year transitional release program.
Sawyer was 16 years old when he and co-defendant Shawn Singletary shot and killed 18-year-old Ronniqueka “Nikki” Covington on January 17, 1998, according to the Miami Herald. The two fired 14 shots into a car, with Sawyer alone unloading seven rounds from a .45 caliber handgun, and also injured Covington’s boyfriend, who was in the vehicle at the time. A jury convicted both men of first-degree murder and attempted murder in 1999.
Covington was an honor roll student at Miami Central High School, a member of the homecoming court, and a participant in the school’s band and color guard teams, the Miami Herald reports. According to the same account, Sawyer and Singletary were not targeting Covington or her boyfriend when the shooting happened.
How a Life Sentence Became a Release Date
Eleventh Judicial Circuit Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson presided over Sawyer’s sentence review, the hearing that ultimately shaved decades off his original punishment. Wolfson had ruled four years earlier that Sawyer should spend the rest of his life in a Florida prison, according to the Miami Herald’s reporting, before this reversal set his path toward eventual release…