MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A man sentenced to 162 years for multiple counts of theft and forgery charges will be released after serving 25 years, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.
Courtney Anderson was arrested and later convicted in the late 1990s. In 2000, Anderson was sentenced to 162 years, 11 months, and 29 days in prison. The sentences would be served consecutively.
The DA’s office said at the time, the judge sentenced Anderson to the maximum amount of time for each conviction since he was a repeat offender.
Anderson tried to appeal his conviction based on excessive sentencing, but the court denied his appeals for procedural reasons, including not attaching the correct transcripts.
This led Anderson to file a pro se motion in criminal court to “correct an illegal sentence” in April this year. Judge Paula Skahan presented the situation to the DA’s office after reviewing the motion and requested that they investigate.
On Tuesday, the judge reduced Anderson’s sentence to 15 years, an effective time-served sentence.
“This was clearly an excessive sentence, the kind of overreaction that sows distrust in our system and doesn’t make us safer, “said Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy. “I’m pleased to have helped in correcting this injustice. It’s an illustration of the good that reform prosecutors can do.”
