BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A state judge has refused to reduce a Denham Springs man's life prison term without parole in the 2013 heroin overdose death of his 19-year-old girlfriend.
The Advocate reports Jarret McCasland's lead attorney told District Judge Don Johnson Monday the sentence is "mind-boggling" as well as a cruel, unusual and excessive punishment for the 27-year-old man.
McCasland was unanimously convicted last fall of second-degree murder in the July 26, 2013, death of Flavia Cardenas.
Johnson sentenced McCasland in February.
Defense attorney Rodney Messina asked the judge to declare unconstitutional a rarely used provision of Louisiana's second-degree murder statute that allows for a murder prosecution when someone is killed and the suspect is accused of distributing or dispensing an illegal drug that directly causes the recipient's death.