GRAND FORKS — The North Dakota Supreme Court is reviewing the murder sentence of Grand Forks teenager Cazmere Haskins.

Earlier this year, Haskins, 18, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the stabbing death of 24-year-old Anfernee Economy. Haskins has called the punishment “cruel” and “unusual.”

Haskins signed a plea agreement in which prosecutors indicated they would seek a 40-year sentence. Now he argues that the punishment is too harsh.

“Had you been any older, it would have been a no-brainer life without parole. You’d never get out,” Judge Jason McCarthy told Haskins during sentencing on March 7.

Haskins’ appeal lawyer, Monty Mertz, called the sentence “grossly disproportionate to the offense committed” and “one of the most offensive things I have ever heard from the bench.”

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