RALEIGH — A Robeson County man is among seven more violent criminals who could potentially be freed because of a court ruling and good conduct credits.

Leroy Richardson, 56, is serving a life sentence for a 1974 murder in Robeson County, according to the state’s Department of Correction. He had been released from prison about a month before.

Records show that Richardson and two other men entered the Wade Jacob grocery store on U.S. 501 near Rowland at about 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 13, 1974, during an attempted robbery. A fourth man waited outside in a vehicle.

Richardson and his accomplices attacked several customers inside the store and the husband and wife storekeepers. A customer, Joseph Maxwell Cook, 63, was stabbed in the back and died.

Richardson had served an earlier prison term for larceny and receiving stolen property in Scotland County, and was released from custody in November 1974, records show.

Richardson began his sentence at Central Prison in Raleigh in May 1975, and today is housed at the correctional center in Anson. He was originally on death row, but his sentence was altered in 1976 to life when the death penalty statute was ruled unconstitutional, records show.

Richardson’s name was included on a list of seven offenders reported Saturday by state officials. The men join 20 others who had been preparing for their release, but the future of all the prisoners remains uncertain.

Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of prisoner Bobby Bowden, who argued a 1970s state law defined a life sentence as 80 years. Time-off credits allowed some like Bowden to get a day reduction for a day of good behavior, and 20 inmates qualified for release.

Their release had been scheduled for this Thursday.

But late last week that was put on hold after Gov. Beverly Perdue said prison officials didn’t have authority to apply the credits to inmates in prison for life. Perdue said that she was “appalled” by the court’s ruling, arguing that the General Assembly never intended to give the Department of Correction that kind of authority.

The governor is preventing their release until the issue is resolved in the courts.

The Associated Press has reported that the original 20 inmates have racked up more than 250 infractions in prison for offenses such as fighting, weapon possession and theft. Records show the violations go as far back as the 1970s but also appear as recently as 2008, raising questions about whether the prisoners are reformed.

Each one of the 20 inmates has at least two infractions, and combined they have a total of 256.

They have repeatedly been denied parole. Seven of the original inmates set for release were once on death row, and all but one of them have been convicted of murder or rape, including several who targeted young girls.

Of the seven inmates whose names were released Saturday, three have been on death row, and all have been convicted of either murder or rape. Officials are still working to notify their crime victims that they could potentially be released, according to prison system spokesman Keith Acree.

Records show Richardson has accumulated more than a half dozen infractions, including three incidents of disobeying an order, two incidents of being caught with contraband, and one barter/trade/loan money, and one of being in an unauthorized location of the prison. His last violation, involving contraband, was in January 2008, according to records.

Richardson, and the other six recently named inmates, are still eligible for annual parole reviews.

Victims of these crimes who have not yet been contacted by a DOC representative are asked to call the DOC Office of Victim Services at (866) 719-0108.