Families Say Duluth Resentencing Ruling Is 'Baffling and Inhumane' After Law Change Alters Sentences in 2017 Murder Case

Heidi Errickson-Grahek stood outside the St. Louis County Courthouse on Monday with a phrase she said captured everything she felt about what just happened to her family: "This is not justice."

Noah Anthony Charles King, now 27, had his first-degree murder conviction vacated under Minnesota's 2023 Felony Murder Reform Act. 6th District Chief Judge Leslie Beiers resentenced him to 32½ years for aiding and abetting second-degree murder, down from a life term he had been serving for the Valentine's Day 2017 shooting death of William Grahek, a 22-year-old junior at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

King was 18 when he and co-defendants Deandre Demetrius Davenport and Noah Duane Baker entered Grahek's home at 510 E. 11th St. in Duluth's East Hillside neighborhood with the intent of stealing drugs and cash. King carried a wrench. Testimony at trial indicated Davenport fired the two shots that killed Grahek after the victim, whose presence in the residence surprised the group, refused commands to get on the ground. Under the law in effect at the time, King's participation in the underlying felony was sufficient for a first-degree murder conviction.

The 2023 reform changed that standard. Now a defendant must have intended the victim's death or been a "major participant" in the crime to face the harshest penalties. Because the Legislature made the change retroactive, King was eligible to petition for relief. Judge Beiers wrote that while she did not want to "minimize King's responsibility," the evidence showed he intended only to commit armed burglary, not to cause Grahek's death.

The more unsettling development for the Grahek family is what comes next. Davenport, the man prosecutors say pulled the trigger, has also filed a petition under the same law. An evidentiary hearing in his case is scheduled for April 28. Deputy St. Louis County Attorney Jon Holets said his office is "deeply frustrated" by the trajectory of the cases.

Heidi Errickson-Grahek told reporters the law had been made with little public discussion and inadequately addressed the toll on victims' families. "It feels kind of like a loophole, and they're taking full advantage of it," she said. William's brother Devin, who was also a UMD student at the time of the killing and has not returned to school since, described ongoing struggles with PTSD, insomnia, and depression.

The resentencing is part of a statewide wave set off by the Felony Murder Reform Act, tracked in the Legislature as HF1573. The bill passed as part of a larger public safety package with DFL support following a bipartisan task force. Prosecutors across Minnesota are now reviewing old files. In cases where defendants played a limited role, some county attorneys have supported petitions. In high-profile cases where victims' families are present and opposed, as in the Grahek matter, prosecutors are resisting and preserving appellate options.

The Davenport hearing in April will force Judge Beiers to wrestle with a harder set of facts: whether the man who, according to trial testimony, fired the fatal shots nonetheless qualifies for the same relief as the co-defendant who carried a wrench. That distinction, and the answer a Duluth courtroom gives it, may define how far Minnesota's sentencing overhaul reaches.