Leeander J. Blake, 22, was convicted in June on charges including first-degree murder and carjacking resulting in death. Straughan Lee Griffin, 51, was shot in the head and run over with his sport utility vehicle on Sept. 19, 2002, in the first slaying since 1968 in the historic district of Annapolis.

Blake apologized in court to Griffin's relatives and asked for their forgiveness.

"No one may think I'm sincere, but I really am, and I'm sorry," he said.

After the sentence was announced, Griffin's brother, sister and fiancee all embraced Blake's mother, LaWanda Pierce.

"Another mother just lost her son," Neil H. Griffin, the victim's brother, said afterward. "That's not a victory. There's no victory in that."

Charges against Blake were thrown out of state court after the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that police violated Blake's Miranda rights by obtaining an incriminating statement after Blake asked for a lawyer. But U.S. District Judge William S. Nickerson allowed the statement into evidence for Blake's federal trial.

Blake's attorney, Kenneth Ravenell, said he would appeal both the conviction and the sentence, largely on the grounds that the statement should not have been allowed. Blake told police that he and co-defendant Terrence Tolbert were looking for someone to rob and that he had pointed out Griffin as a potential target.

Ravenell asked for a 20-year sentence, arguing that Blake was less culpable for Griffin's slaying than Tolbert, who's serving a life sentence after being convicted in state court in 2005. Testimony at trial showed that Tolbert was behind the wheel of Griffin's SUV when it ran over his body, but prosecutors never established who pulled the trigger.

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