A judge Wednesday denied a defense motion to reduce the 40-years-to-life prison sentence for a Carlsbad woman who fatally shot her husband during an argument while their three children watched cartoons downstairs.
Julie Harper had petitioned Judge Blaine Bowman to “strike” a 25-year gun enhancement that was tacked onto her 15-year-to-life sentence for second-degree murder in the Aug. 7, 2012, death of Jason Harper.
Lina Harper, Jason’s mother, told the judge that Harper’s children — who were 8, 6 and 1 when their mother killed their father — “don’t want any reminder of her.”
Jake Harper, who is now 15, wrote a letter to the court, saying his mother “should serve her full 40 years.”
A new state law gives judges discretion to impose the 25-year gun enhancement. It was mandatory when the defendant was originally sentenced.
Earlier this year, the 4th District Court of Appeal found that Harper’s case is among those affected by the new law, and sent it back to Bowman for possible re-sentencing.
In sentencing Harper in January 2016, Bowman said her testimony that her husband came at her in a rage and that she shot him accidentally was “inherently untrustworthy and not worthy of belief.”
Wednesday, the judge told Harper that even though she has been a model prisoner, she left a “trail of devastation” when she shot and killed her spouse.
Bowman noted Harper did not call 911 after she shot the victim, and later buried the gun she used to kill him, which has never been found. The judge said Jason Harper might still be alive if the defendant had chosen another way to try to kill him.
When Harper was sentenced in 2016, Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe told the victim’s family that the defendant would have to serve 40 years before becoming eligible for parole. He said the change in the law “made liars out of us all.”
Harper apologized for her actions and told the judge she takes full responsibility for killing her husband, a popular math teacher and volleyball coach at Carlsbad High School.
The defendant said her three children — and one she had between her first and second trials — are the “center of my universe.”
Harper told the judge that her mother recently died and her only sister committed suicide.
“I have lost everything that was important to me,” she said.
— City News Service
