AURORA | A man sentenced to life in prison for killing an Aurora convenience store clerk during a 2006 robbery could get a chance at parole next week.
Jonathan Andrew Doubleday, 33, was convicted in 2008 of felony murder and second-degree murder for killing Jutte Gallegos Burton at the 7-Eleven at East Sixth Avenue and Havana Street.
A judge later sentenced Doubleday to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the felony murder charge.
But in a legally complicated ruling earlier this year, the Colorado Supreme Court tossed Doubleday’s felony murder conviction.
Defendants can be convicted of felony murder if a person is killed during the commission of certain felonies. In Doubleday’s case, prosecutors filed the felony murder charge based on the fact that Doubleday was committing a robbery at the time of Burton’s slaying.
But Doubleday argued at his trial that he committed the robbery under duress and only because a gang member he owed money to threatened to kill his wife and child and forced him to rob the store.
The jury acquitted Doubleday of the robbery charges but found him guilty of felony murder and second-degree murder.
The court ruled that because the jury had acquitted Doubleday of attempted robbery they could not convict him of felony murder.
At Doubleday’s sentencing in 2008, the judge opted not to hand down a sentence on the second-degree murder charge and sentenced Doubleday to the life in prison term mandated by the felony murder conviction.
The case is now headed back to an Arapahoe County courtroom Monday for sentencing on the second-degree murder charge.
Deputy District Attorney Rich Orman said Doubleday faces between 16 and 48 years on that charge.
At Doubleday’s previous sentencing, prosecutors asked the judge to sentence him to the maximum on that count.
Orman said Burton’s family will have a chance to speak at the hearing, but it isn’t clear if they will.
At Doubleday’s first sentencing, Burton’s daughter, Patricia Gallegos, addressed the court after Doubleday told the court he was sorry and several of Doubleday’s relatives asked the judge for leniency.
Gallegos didn’t appear moved by Doubleday’s comments or by the testimony of his family that he was a compassionate and loving person.
“Where was your compassion when you shot my mother and left her there to die?” she said.
Doubleday is serving his sentence at the Buena Vista Correctional Facility, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections.
In 2015, he was sentenced to an additional five years in prison after prison officials filed a contraband charge against him.