YOUNGSTOWN - The Ohio Supreme Court plans to hear an appeal from a man who says a 115-year prison sentence imposed when he was 15 years old violates his constitutional rights.

YOUNGSTOWN � The Ohio Supreme Court plans to hear an appeal from a man who says a 115-year prison sentence imposed when he was 15 years old violates his constitutional rights.

Brandon Moore was tried as an adult and convicted by a jury in the 2001 armed kidnapping, robbery and gang rape of a 21-year-old woman. He drew the sentence from Mahoning County Judge R. Scott Krichbaum in 2008.

Moore, now 28, says a definite sentence that exceeds his life expectancy for crimes he committed as a juvenile violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The court agreed to hear the case this week after a 2-1 decision of the 7th District Court of Appeals in December left the sentence intact.

Krichbaum imposed that sentence at Moore�s second resentencing after appeals of previous sentences.

�It is the intention of this court that you should never be released from the penitentiary,� the judge told Moore at the time.

Moore�s attorneys wrote that his prison term is the longest they know of for an Ohio juvenile offender.

Ralph M. Rivera, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, had urged the high court to decline to hear the case.

The Moore case was one of only five appeals statewide that the Supreme Court accepted on Wednesday for review.