A 34-year-old Columbia man who was granted a new sentencing hearing after the state's highest court objected to comments made by the sentencing judge received a 14-year prison term yesterday - four years fewer than the 18 years imposed during the first hearing.
The pared-down sentence for Valentino Maurice Jackson's convictions on first-degree assault and a related gun charge was issued more than six months after the Court of Appeals, in a unanimous opinion, ruled that Howard County Circuit Judge James B. Dudley went too far when he mused during sentencing that Columbia attracts "rotten apples" from the city who act as though they live in a "ghetto" and that "people moved out here" to get away from folks like Jackson.
