Young man resentenced on first-degree murder

A MAN WHO WAS 17 years old in 2006 when he and a friend gunned down a Point Breeze man - who suffered for 2 1/2 years before dying - was resentenced Friday to 35 years to life in prison.

Hakim Bond, now 26, was one of two gunmen who ambushed Allen Moment Jr. outside Moment's house, on Pierce Street near 22nd, on Jan. 20, 2006. Moment was paralyzed from the shooting and died Aug. 6, 2008, at age 24.

Bond was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and related offenses on July 20, 2012, and was immediately sentenced to a term of life in prison without parole.

His case was sent back for resentencing by the state Superior Court based on a June 25, 2012, U.S. Supreme Court decision.

That decision, Miller v. Alabama, held that a mandatory term of life in prison for those under 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments."

Under Pennsylvania law, a judge now has some discretion in sentencing a person convicted of first-degree murder after June 24, 2012, and who was under 18 at the time of the crime. Based on Bond's age, his minimum sentence under state law would now be 35 years to life behind bars.

Defense attorney Earl Kauffman, who represented Bond in his appeals, Friday asked Common Pleas Judge Lillian Ransom for the minimum sentence.

Three people also spoke on Bond's behalf. His father, Reginald Carter, contended his son didn't do the shooting. James Walker and Audrey Roll, family friends, asked the judge to give Bond another chance at life.

But Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax said there should be "equal justice under the law" for all three co-defendants in Moment's murder.

Nafeas Flamer, 26, Bond's friend and the other shooter, and Flamer's uncle, Marvin Flamer, 40, who drove them to the scene of the shooting, are serving sentences of life in prison.

Sax also talked about the "torture" endured by Moment, who was the Flamers' cousin.

Moment, who was a drug dealer, was left a quadriplegic and wracked by infection in the 2 1/2 years he lived after being shot.

It wasn't until February 2008, two years after he was shot, that Moment gave up the names of his killers to police on a video while he was bedridden.

That video was shown to juries at Bond's 2012 trial and at the Flamers' January 2014 trial, and helped convict all three suspects.

While all three men were awaiting trial, a key witness who was expected to testify for the prosecution, Abdul Taylor, was gunned down on May 6, 2010, by gunman Derrick White, 20.

Nafeas Flamer - while jailed - ordered that shooting.

White was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 2012. But because of a "technical defect in a legal filing," a defense lawyer has said, prosecutors could not seek the death penalty and White was resentenced in March to life in prison.

As Sax told Ransom on Friday about the nearly 10 years that have passed since Moment's shooting, about the many court hearings for all the defendants, and how family members of both slaying victims have shown up in court so many times, Bond piped up from the defense table.

"Objection, what does this have to do with this hearing?" he said.

Sax continued, explaining that the victims' family members were not in court Friday because they were present for so many other hearings.

Saying that Bond should serve the same sentence as the Flamers, Sax asked Ransom to re-sentence Bond to life in prison without parole.

But the judge gave Bond the minimum sentence under the law - 35 years to life behind bars, with a chance at parole.

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