Court upholds man’s 13-year sentence for killing inmate
NEW CASTLE, Ind. (AP) – A court has upheld a 13-year prison sentence for an Indiana prisoner convicted of killing a fellow inmate in 2013.
The Star Press reports 22-year-old Taylor J. Baughn of Evansville had appealed the sentence, saying it was overly harsh.
Baughn had pleaded guilty to aggravated battery in the death of 37-year-old Jeremiah K. Taylor at New Castle Correctional Facility, and a plea agreement set out a maximum 15-year sentence. A judge gave him 13 years in prison and two years of probation.
Last week, a three-member panel from the Indiana Court of Appeals unanimously said Baughn’s sentence was appropriate. They cited authorities’ assertion that Baughn planned the attack from behind at the bottom of a stairwell. Taylor died from skull fractures.
The panel said Baughn was rated by a risk assessment system as having an “overall risk to reoffend as high.” The judges also said he admitted to “drinking prison-made alcohol while incarcerated.”
Baughn was convicted in 2011 of molesting a child and was sentenced to four years in prison. He’s now being held at Miami Correctional Facility north of Kokomo.
