A criminal court judge sentenced Orleans Parish jail escapee Derrick Groves to two life sentences and 100 years in state prison Friday after years of delays in the case.

Groves killed Byron Jackson and Jamar Robinson and injured two others when he opened fire on a crowd outside of a Ninth Ward home on Mardi Gras Day in 2018.

Groves laughed and smiled as ad-hoc Judge Dennis Waldron spoke throughout the sentencing. Waldron said the sentences are to run consecutively.

Judge calls Groves ‘fugitive from justice’

Waldron called Groves a fugitive from justice and said he would live a lonely life in state prison. He brought up that Groves’ grandmother, Kim Groves, was killed by Len Davis, a former New Orleans police officer also serving a life sentence. He said Groves could have honored her in his life but that he instead chose violence.

District Attorney Jason Williams said the focus in this case and others, especially in light of the Orleans Parish jail escape in May, has been on Groves for far too long.

“Young people, the children in this family used to play in parks,” Williams said. “They weren’t able to do that for months at a time because they were scared that there was going to be some kind of retaliation while Derrick Groves was on the run, so I just hope that as we move forward…folks realize that there’s families on the other side of these cases.”

Families speak in court

Jackson and Robinson’s families both spoke in court. Jackson’s sister said her brother’s death “shattered something inside her that will never heal.” She pointed to her niece and that she’ll grow up without her father.

Investigators have said the shooting was a turf war between drug dealers and that the intended target of the shootout was uninjured.

Groves still awaits sentencing in two separate, open manslaughter cases against him.