A State Supreme Court has ruled that a portion of the sentence handed out for a murder conviction in Niagara County is illegal.
Niagara Falls resident Darnell Carter had his conviction for the 2009 murder of Robert Briggs upheld, but fifteen years were removed from his sentence. The Appellate court ruled that Judge Sara Sheldon Farkas was right in sentencing Carter to a pair of twenty-five years to life terms for the crime. Those sentences are being served concurrently, but an additional fifteen year sentence for weapons possession was found illegal and removed from his record.
Carter will now be eligible for parole in 2032.
