PREVIOUSLY:

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A Eureka man who has served nearly 23 years behind bars for murder was ordered released today after his charges were reduced to one count of burglary.

This morning Judge Larry Killoran dismissed the murder charge and re-sentenced 47-year-old Michael Thomas Gorman to three years, the maximum term for second-degree burglary.

“He is ordered released,” Killoran said, as Gorman watched via Zoom from Valley State Prison in Chowchilla.

Gorman is one of many defendants statewide who were convicted under the so-called Felony Murder Rule, which allowed murder convictions for those who had killed no-one but had participated in the related crime. The rule was changed by the Legislature last year, and now many of those found guilty of murder are asking to be re-sentenced.

Gorman was one of three suspects tried for the April 2001 slaying of Bruce James, who was stabbed to death in his room at the Broadway Motel. The defendants believed James was carrying a lot of cash and looking for a prostitute. They hatched a plan to steal his money. According to appellate court records, the killer, Michael Jared Lane, and his girlfriend Florence Laurel Anderson went to James’s motel room, with Anderson offering to perform oral sex on James. Lane stayed in the bathroom. James and Anderson got into some sort of dispute, and Lane burst out of the bathroom and stabbed James four times in the back and once in the elbow. He bled to death in the motel room.

Gorman was in the motel room next door and did not learn about the killing until afterward. But he helped in planning the heist and accepted some of the items stolen from James. Although the suspects believed James had about $600 in cash, it turned out to be more like $20.

Lane remains in prison. Anderson has already been released under the new law. Gorman told the judge today that he has been in state prison since Feb. 6, 2003. Prior to that he was jailed in Humboldt County.

A jury convicted him in 2002 and he was sentenced to life for murder and three consecutive years for the burglary.

Gorman was represented locally by Deputy Conflict Counsel April Van Dyke. District Attorney Maggie Fleming was in court today for her office.