A New Orleans man with prior felony convictions was sentenced to life in prison again over a cellphone found during a jail shakedown more than a decade ago. On October 15, 2018, Criminal District Court Judge Franz Zibilich resentenced Keith Kisack to life imprisonment as a habitual offender tied to a single contraband possession count, capping a sentencing saga that has dragged through Louisiana’s courts since 2014.
According to NOLA.com, a six-person jury convicted Kisack earlier in 2014 of possessing a cellphone and charger inside the old Orleans Parish Prison, an offense that on its own carried a maximum of five years behind bars. But because it marked Kisack’s fourth felony conviction, prosecutors sought a far harsher habitual-offender sentence, pointing to predicate convictions for illegal discharge of a firearm, aggravated battery and possession of a firearm by a felon, dating back to guilty pleas entered in 1993, 1995 and 2001, according to court records reviewed by caselaw.findlaw.com.
Louisiana’s multiple-offender statute sets a sentencing range of 20 years to life for a fourth-felony offender, the same court record notes. Zibilich left open the possibility that Kisack could one day qualify for parole, though he cast doubt on how likely that outcome actually is, per the same account.
A Sentence That Keeps Coming Back
This is not the first time Kisack has stood before a judge for the same underlying case. The Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal has repeatedly sent the matter back to the trial court over sentencing-procedure errors, including a failure to comply with Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure article 894.1, according to the appellate record. In one ruling, the Fourth Circuit found the district court still had not complied with the court’s prior remand order even years after the original case began…