Thursday, November 7, 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."
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