Teen indicted in Thomas Delpit Drive killing
Advocate staff report
September 20, 2012
An East Baton Rouge Parish grand jury indicted a 16-year-old boy Wednesday in the July 24 shooting death of a 42-year-old man on Thomas Delpit Drive.
The grand jury charged Donovan Woods, 12447 Warfield Ave., with second-degree murder in the killing of James Ray Mimms.
Woods also was indicted on an attempted second-degree murder charge in the wounding of another man in the 2500 block of Thomas Delpit.
A second-degree murder conviction in Louisiana carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without benefit of probation, parole or sentence suspension, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that states cannot automatically impose life terms without the possibility of parole on juveniles in murder cases.
The high court said judges must consider the defendant’s youth and the nature of the crime before putting him behind bars with no hope for parole.
Woods’ case has been assigned to state District Judge Lou Daniel.