DENVER, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- The Colorado Court of Appeals ordered a sentence change for a man convicted of starving a child to death, saying his two terms should be served concurrently.
In a 100-page ruling Thursday affirming the judgment in the case against Jon Richard Phillips, the court said his sentences, of life imprisonment for first-degree murder and 48 years in prison for fatal child abuse, should be served at the same time and not consecutively, because both charges were based on the same evidence.
Phillips was convicted in the 2007 death of his foster son, Chandler Grafner, 7, who starved to death.
Because of Phillips' life sentence, the ruling is expected to have little impact on his possibility of freedom, KMGH-TV, Denver, said Thursday.
The deaths of Grafner and at least 44 other children being overseen by the Colorado child welfare system led to the creation of a state watchdog program.
