A former “chief enforcer” of a Springfield gang who orchestrated a 1995 shooting that killed one man and wounded three other people has been granted parole from his life sentence, records show.

The state Parole Board on Monday voted to grant release to Robert Francis, who had been convicted of accessory before the fact of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Carlos Falcon.

Francis was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the accessory conviction but became eligible to seek release after the state’s highest court ruled last year that life terms without a chance at parole were unconstitutional for defendants aged 18 to 20 at the time of their crimes.

Francis was 18 when he plotted the murder of Falcon, who was gunned down outside a KFC restaurant in Springfiel

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