Michael Jace best known for his role as Officer Julien Lowe on FX’s The Shield has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for the murder of his wife April Jace, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
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After being found guilty late last month for second-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, April, two years ago, Jace learned his fate Friday morning.
Jace was convicted of second-degree murder on May 31.
“I realize it does not bring her back and it doesn’t help, but it would seem to me to matter”, he said.
She cited testimony from the couple’s young son, who told jurors that he heard his father say, ‘If you like running, then run to heaven, ‘ before firing the second shot.
Jace added that he wanted his late wife’s family to know that he didn’t commit first-degree murder.
On May 20, 2014, Jace was arrested and booked with fatally shooting his wife, April Jace.
‘I am profoundly sorry for the pain that I’ve caused everyone’.
The victim’s mother, Kay Henry, stormed out of the courtroom in disgust.
The actor was given a sentence of 15 years to life for the killing and a consecutive 25 years to life for intentionally using a firearm.
Jace “choked and hit” his wife and “slammed her against the wall while (their infant son) screamed in his crib next to her”, Maria De Le Vegas said in the sworn court declaration obtained by CNN.
Jace’s attorneys acknowledged in court that he shot his wife, arguing instead that the shooting was not premeditated.
“Because it was a murder, and it wasn’t a voluntary [manslaughter], and that’s what the point was – it was a difference between what the jury thought as far as the planning involved in it, but it was definitely a murder and the right outcome happened”, she said.
On Friday, prosecutor Tannaz Mokayef told jurors that Jace had to pull a heavy trigger several times to kill April.
After the disturbance, Jace said, “There’s nothing more to say”.
“My son-in-law called me and texted me and said come get the kids because he shot April, our daughter”, he said in a recording released by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
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He told police that she lunged at him, he pushed her away and she spun around before the shooting, and that all he meant to do was “just shoot her in the leg”, not kill her. He has also appeared in such films as “Forrest Gump”, “Boogie Nights” and “Planet of the Apes”.
