Posted on 05/06/2005 3:13:08 PM PDT by SmithL
San Francisco -- A 21-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for murdering the son of California's secretary of state during a street robbery, the San Francisco District Attorney's office said.
Clifton Terrell Jr. could have faced the death penalty for shooting the 27-year-old son of Secretary of State Bruce McPherson in November 2001 because murder committed during the course of a robbery is a special circumstance under California law.
But former District Attorney Terence Hallinan, an opponent of capital punishment, elected not to seek a death sentence for Terrell, who had turned 18 just a few weeks before he shot Hunter McPherson. Life imprisonment without parole is another sentence reserved for exceptional cases.
The secretary of state, who was serving as a state senator from Santa Cruz at the time of his son's death, did not appear in court during Friday's hearing. But the McPherson family had a prosecutor read a statement discussing their loss, said Bilen Mesfin, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Kamala Harris.
San Francisco police said Terrell and an accomplice, Dwayne Reed, 25, were on a crime spree when they ran into Hunter McPherson as he walked home with his girlfriend in the city's Potrero Hill district. McPherson was shot in the chest after refusing to hand over his wallet, according to prosecutor Harry Dorfman.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Of course if had been your or my son, 25 years with parole......
Jeff
I don't think so. Hallinan is an extreme liberal and McPherson is a Republican.
Hallinan is not just an "extreme liberal", he is in fact he is a red diaper baby and a Marxist.
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