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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The lawyers of a Minneapolis policeman sentenced for the fatal murder of an unarmed woman who had called 911 ask a judge not to send him to jail, proposing to the prison that he goes to prison every year on the day of the woman's birthday. anniversary of his death.
State directives provide for 12 and a half years' imprisonment, but Mohamed Noor's lawyers have testified in court before Friday's conviction that imprisonment would prevent Noor from repairing the murder of Justine Ruszczyk Damond doing a good job in the community.
Defense lawyers Thomas Plunkett and Peter Wold proposed in a memorandum to Judge Kathryn Quaintance to creatively sentence Noor to a county detention center for a week each year. anniversary of the death of Damond and a week from her birthday. The proposed sentence would last the duration of Noor's probation, which the lawyers did not specify in their application, and would also include an annual community service period.
"This sentence pays tribute to Mrs. Rusczcyk and allows Mr. Noor to continue serving the city," they wrote. "What is just as important is that Mr. Noor will continue to examine his action and the great loss that they caused."
Prosecutors were waiting until the hearing to recommend a sentence, said Chuck Laszewski, spokesman for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.
Related: vintage crime photos from the Daily News
In April 2017, a jury found Noor guilty of third degree murder and second degree manslaughter, upon the death of Damond, a 40-year-old American and Australian dual citizen, who was to be married one month later. shooting. Noor shot Damond when she approached her team car in the driveway behind her house.
Noor, 33, said in his testimony that a loud bang on the cruise ship had scared him, as well as his partner, and that he had seen a woman at his partner's window raising his arm. He said that he had shot to protect the life of his partner. But prosecutors blamed Noor for firing without seeing a weapon or Damond's hands, and disputed the fact that one or the other actually heard a blow.
Damond's death has caused confusion and outrage in both the United States and Australia, his home country. The case was also heavy race. Damond was white and Noor was a Somali American, which led some to wonder if the case would have been treated the same way if the victim had been black and the agent white.
Shortly after Noor's conviction, the city agreed to negotiate a $ 20 million settlement with Damond's family, but has not yet resolved the issue with Jamar Clark's family, a black man shot dead by the police in 2015. However, in this case, the police had declared the officer's weapon.
Noor has been detained since being convicted in the safest unit in the maximum security prison in Oak Park Heights for his own safety, prison service spokesman Sarah Fitzgerald said Thursday.
According to Minnesota's sentencing guidelines, Noor's presumptive sentence for third-degree murder would be 12.5 years, although the judge could impose a sentence of 11 to 15 years without providing any justification. Any larger variation would require an explanation. The presumptive sentence for the number of involuntary manslaughters is four years.
A sentence of 12 ½ years would be long compared to convictions handed down in other high-profile shootings.
Recently, Jason Van Dyke, a former Chicago police officer, was sentenced in January to nearly seven years in prison for shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald. A white police officer from South Carolina who killed a black man in the back in 2017 was sentenced to 20 years in prison. But a white officer from Oklahoma served less than half of his four-year sentence for the murder of a black man unarmed and restrained in 2015.
Susan Gaertner, a former chief prosecutor of nearby Ramsey County, said she would not be surprised if Noor was taking those 12 and a half years into the presumptive guidelines. But she also said that she could see Quaintance being sentenced to four years' imprisonment recommended for manslaughter – or no jail time.
Gaertner added that the prison would not do much in this case.
"I think that a show of mercy at this stage would help address the community's concerns about race and the disproportionate impact of this case," she said.
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Amy Forliti, Associated Press writer, contributed to this story.
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