Lexington man sentenced to prison for killing 51-year-old man in 2019
.jpg "A 25-year-old Lexington man was sentenced to 17 years in prison Friday for a deadly shooting.")
A Lexington man convicted of shooting and killing a 51-year-old in 2019 was sentenced to 17 years in prison Friday.
Jeremy Jackson, 25, pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree manslaughter and tampering with physical evidence in August, according to court records. The offenses stemmed from a shooting on Florence Avenue that left Carroll Martin dead in 2019. Jackson agreed to the plea deal via an Alford plea, which is when a defendant maintains they are innocent but admits that the prosecution has enough evidence to get a conviction.
Jackson was previously charged with murder, but the charge was amended to manslaughter as part of a plea deal, according to court records.
Fayette Circuit Judge Diane Minnifield sentenced Jackson to 17 years for the manslaughter charge and one year for the tampering with physical evidence charge. Minnifield ordered the sentences to run concurrently, meaning the two sentences will run at the same time, giving him 17 years in prison.
Minnifield went against the prosecution’s recommendation of running the sentences consecutively, which would have given Jackson 18 years in prison. Minnifield said these types of cases are the ones that make her cry.
“You’ve got two families that are just destroyed by gun violence,” Minnifield said. “These guns are just too much and they are destroying so many people’s lives.”
Before the sentencing, Jackson’s lawyer asked if his client could spend a minute with his family in a holdover area, giving him a chance to hold his younger daughter one last time before going to prison. Minnfield denied the request, citing safety reasons.
“I don’t doubt that all of them are very nice people, but there’s just a safety concern for all that’s involved in this court system that we just don’t have the ability to control,” Minnifield said.
Jackson was identified as the suspect about one week after the February 2019 shooting through witness statements, a photo lineup, neighborhood resource officers and other “police intelligence resources,” according to his arrest warrant. He’s been lodged at the Fayette County Detention Center since Sept. 26, 2019, according to jail records.
