Friday, November 8, 2024 – A California court has upheld Eric Ronald Holder's first-degree murder conviction for shooting rapper Nipsey Hussle outside the musician's South Los Angeles clothing store.
Holder Jr., now 34, is serving a 60-years-to-life state
prison sentence for the March 31, 2019, killing of the 33-year-old rapper,
whose real name was Ermias Joseph Asghedom.
In its 25-page ruling, the three-justice panel from
California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's challenge to
Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke's decision to sustain the prosecution's
objection to a portion of the closing argument by Holder's trial attorney that
purported to describe what the defendant was thinking and feeling before the
shooting.
"Appellant did not testify, and no other evidence about
what appellant was thinking or feeling prior to the shooting was presented to
the jury," Presiding Justice Elwood Lui wrote on behalf of the panel.
"Thus, the inferences about appellant's specific thoughts and feelings
that defense counsel purported to draw were not based on the evidence, and the
trial court did not abuse its discretion in limiting that portion of counsel's
argument."
The panel also turned down the defense's claim that the
judge abused his discretion when he declined to dismiss a gun enhancement that
added 25 years to life to Holder's sentence, finding that "the record here
affirmatively shows the trial court fully understood and properly exercised its
discretion when it declined to dismiss the firearm enhancement."
"The court emphasized its responsibility to consider
and evaluate the mitigation evidence presented by the defense, particularly the
evidence of appellant's history of mental illness, and it indicated that the
sentence it was about to pronounce balanced appellant's mitigating evidence
with the devastation appellant had caused to the victims and their
families," Lui wrote, with Associate Justices Judith Ashmann-Gerst and
Brian Hoffstadt concurring in the ruling.
Along with the first-degree murder charge, Holder was found
guilty in July 2022 of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter and
assault with a firearm involving two other men who were injured in the shooting
and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Jurors also found true allegations that he personally and
intentionally discharged a handgun and that he personally inflicted great
bodily injury on one of the two surviving victims.
The judge refused in December 2022 to reduce Holder's
conviction to second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, with the
60-years-to-life sentence subsequently being handed down in February 2023.
Deputy District Attorney John McKinney noted in his
sentencing memorandum that Holder "used two handguns during the commission
of his crimes" and "inflicted 11 gunshot wounds with no less than 10
separately fired shots into the body of Asghedom from close range" and
that he "kicked Asghedom in the head while he lay dying on the
ground."
Defense attorney Aaron Jansen said at the sentencing that
his client was already the subject of death threats and that "his life in
prison is going to be hell for as long as it lasts."
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