Actor Michael Jace, famous for his role in the series "The Shield," sits in court during his sentencing in Los Angeles, California on June 10, 2016. AFP PHOTO / POOL / FREDERIC M.BROWN
LOS ANGELES, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Former television series "The Shield" actor Michael Jace was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Friday for shooting his wife in front of their two young children in 2014.
Jurors deliberated less than three hours before convicting Jace on May 31 of second-degree murder, and finding true an allegation that he personally used a handgun.
Before the sentence, the 53-year-old actor spoke for first time in court that there was "no justifications for my actions" when he shot his wife, April Jace. He also turned to the family and said "I am profoundly sorry for the pay I have caused everyone ... There is no replacing April."
During the trial, the couple' s 10-year-old boy, Nehemiah, testified that he saw his father bring his 40-year-old mother into a hallway, where she fell down.
"Then my dad said, 'If you like running, run to heaven,' and then he shot her," the boy told the jury.
"Defendant Jace is a volatile individual who displays unpredictable and irrational rage and he is prone to violence," the statement concludes. "Any discussion about parole for Defendant Jace must be considered with extreme caution."
The statement also recounts the trial testimony of Jace's ex-wife, Jennifer Bitterman, whom he divorced in 2003, alleging that Jace choked and hit her and threw her against a wall in front of another woman while Bitterman's 6-month-old son cried in his crib nearby.
"On numerous occasions, Defendant Jace was both physically and psychologically abusive as well as threatening," Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef noted.
April Jace's mother told the judge that she "cried for hours after her death" and still cries during numerous activities, including worship at church, holidays, her birthday and May 19th -- the anniversary of her daughter's death.
"My life will never be the same," she said, urging Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry to impose the maximum sentence on her daughter's killer.
Jace shot his wife three times, once in the back and then twice in the legs on May 19, 2014, at the home the couple shared with their sons in the Hyde Park area of Los Angeles. The final shots were delivered in a hallway of the couple's home, within sight of their sons, who were aged 8 and 5 at the time.
In an audio-recorded interview played for the jury, Jace told police that he was holding the gun when his wife returned home from a baseball game with their sons but that she didn't immediately notice the firearm.
He told police that she lunged at him, he pushed her away and she spun around before the shooting. "I was just angry," Jace told investigators. "All I intended to do was to shoot her in the leg," not kill her.
The prosecutor noted that Jace also believed his wife April, a financial aid counselor at Biola University, was having an affair. April denied she was cheating in text messages sent to her husband before she was killed.
The prosecutor said the couple exchanged 164 text messages the day of the shooting, telling jurors that Jace's wife wrote one text message that she was "afraid to come home" and that her husband had engaged in "trickery to make her believe he wasn't home."
"He's obsessed with her ... He finally controls her to heaven," the prosecutor told jurors.
Jace is best known for his role as Los Angeles police officer Julien Lowe in "The Shield." He has also appeared in such films as "Forrest Gump," "Boogie Nights" and "Planet of the Apes."
