AppId is over the quota
The Star-LedgerCarlton Franklin, left, now 52 years old, is charged with the 1976 killing of Lena Triano, right. Both are pictured in their high school yearbooks — Franklin from 1979 and Triano from 1937. Franklin was sentenced to 10 years for the murder today.ELIZABETH — Saying he wanted to impose a stiffer jail term but was unable to because of changes in the law, a Superior Court judge today sentenced a 52-year-old man to serve 10 years for the 1976 murder of a Westfield woman who was killed when the defendant was 15.
“If I were permitted, I would have imposed a longer sentence,” Judge Robert Kirsch said at the end of Carlton Franklin’s lengthy hearing.
Franklin was arrested last April after investigators used DNA evidence to crack the decades-old murder of Lena Triano, 57, a secretary who was found raped, tied up stabbed and beaten in her home in March 1976.
Because of his age at the time of the murder, Franklin was tried under juvenile laws that existed in 1976. After a five-day non-jury trial last December, Kirsch found Franklin guilty of felony murder.
Prosecutors sought a 20-year sentence, the maximum allowed for a juvenile in the 1970s. But Kirsch said laws were changed in 1983, establishing a 10-year maximum penalty for juveniles.
He cited subsequent rulings in both state and federal cases stating that the more recent penalties should be applied.
During today’s hearing in Elizabeth, Kirsch “invited review” of his decision by a higher court. Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said he would appeal.
Defense attorney Edward Busichio asked that Franklin be sentenced to the 304 days he has already served, a motion the judge flatly rejected.
Busichio said after the hearing that state juvenile laws carry no mandatory minimum sentence, but juveniles receiving 10-year penalties commonly serve just three or four years. He noted that Franklin will also be given credit for time served and length of his sentence will be decided by the parole board.
“For him to serve the 10 years would be highly unlikely,” Busichio said.
Earlier this week, Union County Assistant Prosecutor Bruce Holmes filed a motion calling for an extended penalty that would add five years to the sentence based on crimes Franklin committed as an adult, but Kirsch rejected the motion, said the crimes failed to meet the criteria for the additional time.
Before the sentence was announced, Franklin admitted he had made mistakes in his life apologized for them. He did not make any reference to the murder.
Kirsch said Franklin had never taken responsibility for the murder and that he denied “any vestige of compassion or mercy for Ms. Triano.”
Romankow said the Franklin case had been “complicated.”
“We feel Mr. Franklin should be sentenced to an indeterminate term of not exceeding life, in accordance with the terms that applied when the crime occurred. We will appeal the ruling,” he said.
Triano, who lived alone on Ripley Place in Westfield, was found facedown on her bed. She had been raped, stabbed and strangled with a cord from her bedroom blinds. She was tied with cables cut from appliances in her kitchen. The back door to her house, which investigators say was usually left unlocked, was locked and the key was missing.
At the time of Triano’s death, Franklin was living with his family on Stirling Place and his backyard abutted hers. Franklin has denied knowing Triano but his semen was found on her clothing and body, according to testimony taken during the trial.
Franklin, who was working as an oil truck driver at the time of his arrest, had had served 17 years in prison for kidnapping and robbery.
But Busichio said his client was living a productive life since being released from prison in 1999.
The Triano case lay dormant for nearly four decades until detectives with the Union County Homicide Task Force unearthed the forensic evidence on her clothing they say implicated Franklin.
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