MI- Under new law, child molester Aaron Michael Snyder gets life in prison

1-28-2009 Michigan:

MUSKEGON COUNTY — For the first time in modern Muskegon County history, a nonmurderer has gotten the toughest sentence Michigan has to give: mandatory life in prison without chance of parole.

That sentence was handed down Tuesday to repeat child molester Aaron Michael Snyder, 34, of 1547 Auble. Snyder pleaded guilty as charged Jan. 12 to first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a person younger than 13.

Muskegon County 14th Circuit Judge James M. Graves Jr. handed down the sentence. But it wasn't Graves' call: under a 2006 state law, applied here for the first time, the prison-until-death sentence wasn't optional.

Because Snyder has a prior child-sex conviction -- a 1993 Newaygo County conviction of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child younger than 13 -- the life-without-parole sentence was mandatory.

Snyder's guilty plea was conditional. At the time he made it, he reserved the right to appeal his sentence and the validity of the state law.

In Snyder's case, sentencing guidelines in the absence of the "mandatory life" law called for a minimum prison term of somewhere between 6 3/4 and 14 years, Graves said in court. But, he noted, those guidelines were "academic" in Snyder's case.

In court Tuesday, Snyder did not address the sentence itself. He said he had already apologized to the victim's family, his own family and added an apology to the judge.

Snyder also asked Graves to recommend sex offender counseling for him while in prison -- which the judge did -- and to order him held in a Muskegon County prison, which the judge said he has no authority to do.

Snyder, already a registered sex offender, was charged last July. The offense involved an 8-year-old boy at Snyder's Laketon Township home, according to Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague. Tague said in addition to the Newaygo County conviction, Snyder later molested a young person while living at a Teen Challenge facility in Missouri. ..News Source.. by John S. Hausman | The Muskegon Chronicle