A judge in Mesa County District Court denied Wednesday a request to overturn the convictions of a Durango man who has served nearly 30 years of a life sentence for the 1995 murder of a teenager.
Raymond Cain was convicted of felony murder in the first degree; conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree; attempted murder in the first degree; and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. Cain was 17 when he and two other juveniles shot and robbed two young women near Bodo Park.
Sadie Frost, 18, died; Shawnda Baker, who was 19, survived the shooting.
Cain filed a sixth appeal of his convictions a year ago. He offered an argument similar to those made by his two codefendants, Gabriel Rivera and Forest Porter, which resulted in new plea deals for the men in 1998 and 2000 respectively.
Both men pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and have since been released from prison.
Cain’s most recent failed argument, along with Rivera’s and Porter’s previously successful one, all hinged on whether the jury was properly instructed on the definition of the predicate felony offense – in this case attempted robbery – that turns a murder charge into felony murder.
The 23-year gap between Porter’s successful appeal and Cain’s attempt at freedom did not mean Cain was too late, Cain’s attorneys argued, but that prior counsel rendered ineffective assistance.
District Attorney Sean Murray, in the 6th Judicial District, argued that the instructions were not erroneous, and that prior appeals by other attorneys could have argued that point.
Judge Brian Flynn agreed.
“(A)s Defendant knew of the purported instructional error when his codefendants appealed on those grounds, there has been an unreasonable delay in asserting an available remedy,” he wrote.
As a matter of fairness, Flynn found that the lengthy delay in appeal was not reasonable and the ineffective counsel argument unconvincing.
“The District Attorney’s Office hopes that this ruling brings some small measure of closure to the victims and the victims’ families,” Murray said in an email. “In this case from so many years ago, society and the victims have an enhanced interest in finality.”
In 2016 Cain’s sentence was reduced from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole after 40 years in accordance with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which prohibited lifetime sentences without parole for crimes committed by juveniles.
He is currently being held at the Fremont Correctional Center near Cañon City and will be eligible for parole in 2041.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
