Washington justices vacate 46-year sentence for teen killer

By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state Supreme Court has overturned a 46-year sentence for a man who killed his friend’s little sister when he was 17. Timothy Haag of Longview was initially sentenced to life without parole for choking and drowning 7-year-old Rachel Dillard in a bathtub in 1994. But in 2018, after the U.S. Supreme Court found that automatic life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional, Haag was resentenced to at least 46 years. That could have seen him released at age 63. The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the sentence was too long and that the judge failed to properly weigh evidence Haag had been rehabilitated. The court awarded him a new sentencing hearing.