LOS ANGELES — An actor who played a police officer on the TV show “The Shield” has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for killing his wife.
Michael Jace was sentenced Friday in Los Angeles after being convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of April Jace.
Michael Jace was sentenced after an emotional hearing in which the victim’s family members wept as they spoke about the impact of her loss.
Jace apologized to the family and said there’s no justification for his actions.
Jace, 53, admits to fatally shooting his wife in May 2014. His attorney told jurors that Jace acted in the heat of passion.
When jurors found Jace guilty of killing his wife in front of the couple’s two young sons, the only visible emotion the TV actor showed was to bite his lip.
Soon after the attack, Jace told detectives that he had retrieved the gun to kill himself but couldn’t go through with it. Instead, he planned to shoot his wife, an avid runner, in the leg so she would feel pain, Jace said in a recorded interview.
Prosecutor Tannaz Mokayef told jurors that Jace fired a revolver that required him to pull a heavy trigger several times.
“I don’t know how you can shoot somebody three times and call it an accident,” she said.
She cited testimony from the couple’s 10-year-old son, who told jurors that he heard his father say, “‘If you like running, then run to heaven,”’ before firing the second time.
“Who is going to argue that this was not an intent to kill?” Mokayef said.
Mokayef said the actor was upset that his wife wanted a divorce and believed she was having an affair, although no evidence was presented during the trial that she was cheating.
She said he taunted her after first shooting her in the back, and then shot her in the legs.
After Jace was found guilty last week, an adult son of April Jace said he was hoping the actor will show his feelings at his sentencing.
“I’d just like to see the sadness on his face,” Savoy Brown said, adding that when Jace appears emotionless, it makes him wonder: “How can you go that far? How can you say those words? How can you do that?”
April Jace, 40, was a financial aid counselor at Biola University. She was married to Michael Jace for nine years and they had two sons, who were 8 and 5 at the time of her death.
Michael Jace had small roles in films such as “Planet of the Apes,” ‘’Boogie Nights” and “Forrest Gump.”
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