Jurors took three hours to reach the verdict, meaning they accepted April Jace’s killing was not premeditated, but believed it to be more serious than voluntary manslaughter.
The 53-year-old American, famous for his part in police drama “The Shield” and big-screen roles including in “Forrest Gump,” faces up to 40 years in jail when he is sentenced on June 10.
Deputy district attorney Tannaz Mokayef told jurors in her summing up on Friday that Jace was “obsessed” with his wife, who had been trying to leave him amid his allegations that she had been unfaithful.
Jace’s defense team accepted that he had shot his wife in the back and twice in her legs on May 19, 2014, but maintained he was guilty only of voluntary manslaughter, sometimes called a “crime of passion.” “He snapped.
If you find there was something that provoked this man… and it created some kind of passion in him, that’s manslaughter,” his attorney Jamon Hicks told jurors.
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