'White Boy Rick' pushes for reduced sentence

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area drug dealer nicknamed “White Boy Rick,” who has been in prison for 28 years for crimes when he was a teen, is making another effort to get his sentence reduced.

The Detroit News reports a lawyer for Richard Wershe filed a petition Tuesday in U.S. District Court asking the court to reverse state court orders and send his case for immediate resentencing.

The 47-year-old Wershe is serving a life sentence with occasional opportunities for parole. Michigan’s parole board so far has declined to release him.

The petition says his no-parole sentence violates Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment as well as Michigan’s constitution. It says parole proceedings haven’t considered Wershe’s “youthfulness at the time of his offense or his demonstrated rehabilitation, growth and maturity.”