sistastarbird: Mehserle Gets Two Years in Grant Killing;Lowest Possible Sentence

Mehserle Gets Two Years in Grant Killing—Lowest Possible Sentence

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New America Media, News Report, News Services, Posted: Nov 05, 2010

LOS ANGELES— A Los Angeles County judge has sentenced former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle to two years in state prison—the shortest possible term—for fatally shooting Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old unarmed black man, in Oakland nearly two years ago.
A jury in Los Angeles, where the trial was moved because of pre-trial publicity, had found Mehserle, who is white, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in July but acquitted him of the more serious charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter.
The jury had also found that Mehserle, 28, had used a gun in the commission of the killing, a so-called “gun enhancement” that could have led to a more sentence of up to 14 years.
But on Friday, Superior Court Judge Robert Perry threw out the gun enhancement, saying it had confused the jury and was not supported by the evidence. During the hearing, which lasted several hours, Perry read from some of the 1,000 letters that he received urging him to give Mehserle the stiffest possible sentence.
With credit for time he has already served, Mehserle will be eligible for release in about a year.
After the sentencing was announced, Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, emerged from the courtroom muttering, "Nothing, he got nothing!" the Los Angeles Times reported. The family declined to talk to reporters.
Mehserle shot Grant in the back on Jan. 1, 2009, while Grant lay face down on a train platform at the Fruitvale station. He and his friends had been pulled off the BART train for allegedly starting a fight. Several of the young men were in the process of being handcuffed when Mehserle pulled out his gun and shot Grant.
The killing, which was caught on multiple cell phone cameras and immediately uploaded on YouTube, outraged the African-American community and led to several nights of protests.
At his trial last summer, Mehserle testified that he killed Grant accidentally, after mistaking his service pistol for his Taser.
Alameda County prosecutor David Stein argued that Mehserle had "lost all control" of his emotions before the shooting and that the killing was intentional.
The jury agreed that Mehserle did not intend to kill Grant, but acted negligently.
After the sentencing on Friday, analysts seized on the disparity between the sentence and the enhancement, arguing that involuntary manslaughter suggests an accidental killing, but that the gun enhancement suggest intentional use of a deadly weapon. The Huffington Post reported that discrepancy gave Perry leeway to draw a wide range of interpretations based on the jury's findings.
In Oakland on Friday, city offices were set to close at 1:00 pm and many businesses were shutting down early in preparation for expected demonstrations.
In contrast to July, when members of the community and media were expecting violent outbreaks, no one is quite sure what the community's response might be on Friday. Some businesses were reported to have boarded up their windows in advance of the sentencing, the preparations were not as widespread as during the summer.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in downtown Oakland, where a memorial was being set up for his grandson, Oscar Grant Sr., 65, said, “It’s a bad decision. No time can bring [Oscar] back. But [Mehserle] should have served some time. Otherwise, they’re telling the public, though he went to trial, a policeman can shoot someone and go free. These guys have a license to kill.”
But the elder Grant discouraged violent protests.
“My message to the public is don’t use this as a reason to destroy this city,” he said.

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Anonymous
Posted 3 minutes ago

The judge has spoken, just leave it where it is.

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