BEL AIR, Md. (AP) — A prison inmate has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in a decades-old slaying of an Edgewood shopkeeper.
A jury convicted 52-year-old Bryan Quickley of the murder in 1980, but last year an appeals court ordered that Quickley get a new trial. He is one among dozens of Maryland convicts whose convictions were overturned following a ruling by the state’s highest court that jury instructions back then were insufficient.
Quickley had been sentenced to life in prison at his original trial. In the plea agreement he struck on Monday in Harford County Circuit Court, he agreed to a 50-year sentence, with credit for time served since the 1979 slaying.
Quickley, who was 17 when the slaying occurred, had remained incarcerated while his retrial was pending.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
