BANGOR (AP) — A state prison inmate serving a 35- year sentence for murder was allowed to turn back the clock to change his plea and to receive a reduced sentence on Friday.
Zachary Carr contended he didn’t understand the ramifications when he turned down a plea deal requiring him to serve seven years in prison. On Friday, a judge set aside the 24-yearold’s murder conviction, allowed him to plead guilty to manslaughter and reduced his sentence to 15 years in prison.
Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber called the hearing unprecedented in his 27 years as a prosecutor but concluded that the result was as just “as we could’ve hoped for.”
Carr was 19 when he shot Bobby Surles in 2010 while he was lying unarmed on the ground following a confrontation between two groups in Bangor. He was sentenced in 2011.
During the hearing, Carr apologized to Surles’ family, but the family didn’t like the turn of events.
“My son did not get a second chance. Why should Mr. Carr? My son got a life sentence,” said Mary Ann Suddy, Surles’ grandmother, who’d adopted and raised him.
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