Former death-row inmate Walter Kelbach argues he should be released from prison or resentenced for second-degree murder.
Kelbach, 53, and Myron Lance, 51, have been at the state prison for 25 years, serving life terms for convictions on two of six slayings during a five-day crime spree in December 1966.In 1972, while the two men were on death row, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned all the death penalties in the United States. The death sentences of Lance and Kelbach were commuted to life imprisonment.
Kelbach argues that he should have been resentenced following the Supreme Court's decision to the lowest degree of murder in effect at that time. According to Kelbach, that was second-degree murder, which was then punishable by a 10-year-to-life prison term.
Kelbach brought his request before 3rd District Court Judge Anne M. Stirba on Monday. She continued the case until Dec. 7, at which time an attorney will be appointed for Kelbach.
Kelbach and Lance were on parole when they embarked on the five-day murder and robbery spree. They were tried in two of the murders but later admitted all of the slayings. They abducted and killed two 18-year-old gas-station attendants, shot to death a cab driver and then shot and killed three people in a Salt Lake tavern.
Last May, the Utah Board of Pardons unanimously denied them parole and recommended they spend the rest of their lives in prison without consideration of parole by future boards.