Townflex Entertainment News – On Monday, December 20th, a judge denied a defense request to have Eric Holder Jr., the man who fatally shot rapper Nipsey Hussle in front of the musician’s South Los Angeles apparel store’s first-degree murder conviction reduced to second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.
The hip-hop community was saddened back In 2019, after learning of the sad news of rising rap star Nipsey Hussle who got shot and k!lled outside his own clothing store in South LA by Eric Holder Jr. when he opened fire on Hussle with a black semiautomatic gun in one hand and a silver revolver in the other after the two men had a conversation in the parking lot outside Hussle’s South Los Angeles clothing store about 10 minutes prior.
Attorneys for Eric Holder initially made the request during a court appearance on November 2, where defense attorney Aaron Jensen argued that jurors returned an “inconsistent” verdict when they convicted Holder of premeditated murder over Nipsey Hussle’s death, yet accepted his “heat of passion” defense regarding the two other shooting victims, Kerry Lathan and Shermi Villanueva.
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Well, on Monday (December 19) hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke denied the defense’s request to have the charge reduced to second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, which would have potentially shaved decades off Eric Holder’s eventual sentence, NBC Los Angeles reports.
Judge H. Clay also refused a defense plea for a new trial for Eric Holder Jr., whose sentence was slated for Feb. 22.
Jansen claimed his client behaved in “heat of emotion” after Hussle accused him of being a “snitch.”
During the trial, Deputy District Attorney John McKinney described the k!lling as “cold-blooded” and “calculated,” noting that Holder had “quite a bit of time for premeditation and deliberation” between his verbal exchange with Nipsey Hussle and the shooting nine minutes later, noting that Holder had left the parking lot outside of the Marathon Store before deciding to return.
“Saying, ‘You’re through,’ before shooting him and shooting him a number of times… kicking him in the head, that’s personal… What makes this murder first-degree is premeditation and deliberation,” McKinney claimed.
The jurors eventually agreed with the prosecutors and found Holder guilty of murder. However, when it came to the two other men injured in the shooting, Kerry Lathan and Shermi Villanueva, jurors rejected prosecutors’ attempted murder counts and instead found Holder guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter. (Jurors could have chosen a third option, assault with a firearm, but they chose not to.)
“It’s still a lot of time, but at least he would have a chance at a life afterward,” Jansen previously told Rolling Stone.
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