Two state prison inmates convicted of murdering a San Quentin officer in 1985 have lost appeals for reduced sentences.
Andre Johnson, now 60 years old, and Lawrence Woodard, now 78, were among three prisoners convicted of a conspiracy to kill Sgt. Dean Burchfield. Johnson was the person who actually stabbed Burchfield, authorities said.
In 2019, a new state law, Senate Bill 1437, offered a convicted murderer the ability to petition for a lower sentence if he or she “was not the actual killer, did not act with the intent to kill, or was not a major participant in the underlying felony who acted with reckless indifference to human life.”
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Johnson and Woodard filed petitions for resentencing in 2022. A judge in Marin County Superior Court denied the petitions last year. Johnson and Woodard appealed to the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco.
In a decision issued on Sept. 30, a unanimous three-judge panel rejected the appeals, finding no errors by the lower court.
Woodard is incarcerated at the state prison in Corcoran. Johnson is at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County. The other codefendant, Jarvis Masters, is at the Sierra Conservation Center in Tuolumne County.
