Pa. man whose 4-year-old stepdaughter accidentally killed herself with his loaded gun loses ... [View all]

Pa. man whose 4-year-old stepdaughter accidentally killed herself with his loaded gun loses bid to shorten prison term

A Pennsylvania man whose 4-year-old stepdaughter accidentally killed herself with a loaded handgun he left in a closet will stay behind bars after a state court denied his appeal of a prison term insisted is excessive.
Demetrius Williams wasn’t supposed to have a gun at all. He is a convicted felon.

Police said the little girl, Sani Holmes, died after she found the loaded pistol in a closet in a bedroom of her family’s Philadelphia home in June 2016. She was looking down the barrel of the weapon when she pulled the trigger, investigators said.

Williams, now 31, was sentenced to 9 ½ to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, weapons charges and child endangerment, Judge Maria McLaughlin noted in the Superior Court opinion denying Williams’ appeal.

Williams claimed in that appeal that he was over-sentenced because the Philly judge ran the prison terms for his manslaughter and weapons charges consecutively. He claimed that judge relied too heavily on
his criminal history, including multiple past weapons charges, in choosing his punishment. In disagreeing, Judge McLaughlin found the consecutive sentences are justified because the involuntary manslaughter and the weapons count are entirely different crimes.

https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2021/09/pa-man-whose-4-year-old-stepdaughter-accidentally-killed-herself-with-his-loaded-gun-loses-bid-to-shorten-prison-term.html