Actor in Murder Trial
An actor who played a police officer on TV show "The Shield" is guilty
of murder because of remarks he made about the killing to detectives,
his brother-in-law and in text messages to his dead wife, a prosecutor
told a jury Friday.
Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef used several statements from
Michael Jace to make her case that "The Shield" actor should be
convicted of first-degree murder in April Jace's May 2014 death.
The prosecutor also cited testimony from their 10-year-old son, who
heard his father tell his mother, "'If you like running, then run to
heaven.'" She said the statement showed Michael Jace planned to kill his
40-year-old wife of nine years, who was an avid runner.
"Who is going to argue that this was not an intent to kill?" Mokayef said. "Where else is heaven?"
Jace acknowledges shooting April Jace three times — once in the back and
twice in the legs — with his attorneys saying he was caught up in the
heat of passion. Defense lawyer Jamon Hicks told jurors that the facts
of the shooting were not in dispute and called the details horrible.
However, prosecutors were trying to oversell their case, Hicks said,
urging the panel to convict the actor of the lesser offense of voluntary
manslaughter. Hicks said the case hinged on Jace's mindset at the time
of the shooting and that prosecutors could not prove the killing was
premeditated.
"He snapped," the attorney said about Jace. "If you find there was
something that provoked this man ... and it created some kind of passion
in him, that's manslaughter."
The prosecutor urged the panel of six men and six women to reject that
argument, telling jurors that Jace fired a revolver that required him to
pull a heavy trigger multiple times.
"I don't know how you can shoot somebody three times and call it an accident," Mokayef said in a blistering closing argument.
Michael Jace, who also had small roles in films such as "Boogie Nights,"
''Forrest Gump" and the TV show "Southland," had been out of work for
years, and financial struggles put a strain on their marriage.
April Jace told her husband she wanted a divorce the day of the
shooting, and the couple had argued. She told her husband she was scared
in one text message sent hours before her death.
"I don't want you throwing things and breaking things and screaming lies
to the boys," she wrote to her husband in a message retrieved from her
cellphone. "I am afraid to come home."
April Jace was killed moments after returning home from a youth baseball
game. Text messages presented during trial show Michael Jace had told
his wife he had left their home, but instead he was waiting with a
loaded handgun.
The actor told detectives he planned to kill himself but couldn't follow
through. He also said he shot his wife the first time after she lunged
at him.
"I was just angry," Michael Jace told investigators, according to a
transcript released Thursday. "All I intended to do was shoot her in the
leg. And then I shot her in the leg, and that was it."
He gave a lengthy interview to police and also called his wife's
stepbrother explaining his actions. If convicted of first-degree murder,
Jace faces 50 years to life in prison.michael-jace-shield-actor-gets-40-years
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