A state appeals court panel Tuesday rejected an appeal stemming from an unsuccessful bid for re-sentencing by actor Michael Jace, who was convicted of murdering his wife in front of their two young children in their Hyde Park home just over a decade ago.
“Nowhere in the record has Jace denied having killed (his wife) April. Nothing in the record of conviction suggests there was any other perpetrator,” the three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal wrote in a seven-page ruling. “In short, the record of conviction establishes Jace is not entitled to relief as a matter of law.”
Jace — who is now 63 and serving a 40-year-to-life state prison sentence — filed a petition for re-sentencing as a result of a change in state law that affects defendants in some murder cases. But Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke II denied the petition in April 2024.
Jace had lost a previous bid in 2019 to have his sentence reduced, with then-Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry declining to exercise his discretion to strike a 25-year-to-life gun use enhancement against Jace, who portrayed a Los Angeles police officer on the TV series “The Shield.”
Jace was convicted in May 2016 of second-degree murder for the May 19, 2014, shooting death of his wife.
“This is a very sad case for all involved. I know the defendant was filled with remorse after he took his wife’s life,” Perry said, while noting that Jace’s actions were “so egregious.”
In January 2019, a separate appellate court panel found there was “compelling evidence that Jace acted with the malice required for second-degree murder.”
“With the boys watching from their bedroom, he shot and killed April, telling her, `If you like running, then run to heaven,”’ that appellate court panel noted in its 2019 ruling, which ordered the case to be sent back to the trial court as the result of a new state law that gives judges the discretion to strike certain firearm enhancements.
“Jace told the detectives he fired the first shot, and then after April fell, he intentionally shot April in the legs so, as a talented runner, she would feel some of his pain,” the appellate court panel noted.
At his June 2016 sentencing, Jace apologized for what he had done, saying there was “no justification for my actions that night at all, and I am profoundly sorry for the pain I have caused everyone … There is no replacing April.”
His mother-in-law quickly walked out of court after Jace maintained that “there was no premeditated anything.”
Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef told jurors during the trial that Jace was “obsessed” with his wife, who was trying to leave him amid his claim that she had been unfaithful to him. The prosecutor said testimony from the couple’s 10-year-old son “tells you it was premeditated.”
Jace “is saying the words that show premeditation — go to heaven,” Mokayef said, noting that Jace shot his wife at close range after having already shot her in the back.
One of Jace’s trial attorneys, Jamon Hicks, conceded that Jace shot his wife once in the back and then twice in the legs. But he questioned whether the actor would have premeditated the shooting knowing that the children would be there.
Jace’s lawyer told jurors there was no evidence that Jace was brewing or plotting the demise of his wife of nine years, and that the prosecution had “oversold this case” by pursuing a first-degree murder conviction.
“We’re saying he’s guilty. The question is of what?” Hicks said. “This isn’t first-degree (murder). This isn’t second-degree (murder). This is why we have voluntary manslaughter.”
In an audio-recorded interview with police that was played for the jury, Jace said 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, and that all he intended to do was “just shoot her in the leg,” not kill her.
The actor also told detectives he had been drinking that day and that “there were moments” when he contemplated taking his life.
Jace, who is best known for his role as Los Angeles police Officer Julien Lowe in “The Shield,” also appeared in such films as “Forrest Gump,” “Boogie Nights” and “Planet of the Apes.”