A woman convicted in the murder of her stepfather receives a new sentence Monday after an appellate court ruled in her favor.
Brae Hansen, 24, cried when she was convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances of lying in wait.
Jurors in the 2009 trial agreed she was the “mastermind” behind the 2007 shooting death of local attorney, Timothy MacNeil.
Hansen, who was 17 when she was arrested, was tried as an adult. Her attorney successfully appealed to reconsider the sentence after a Supreme Court ruling found that these sentences may be cruel and unusual when it comes to minors.
In a resentencing hearing Monday, her life in prison without parole sentence was reduced to 26 years to life.
Judge Frederic Link said in his 34 years of being a judge, he's never put more thought into a case than this one.
It came down to meeting a standard set by the Supreme Court for a sentence of life in prison without parole. Is Hansen irreparably corrupt, beyond redemption and unfit to enter society?
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Hansen’s brother, Nathaniel Gann was convicted in the same case.
Investigators testified in the trial that Hansen had promised her brother 15 percent of her inheritance as they planned MacNeil’s murder.
MacNeil, a criminal defense attorney, was shot and killed in his Rolando home in July 2007. MacNeil was tied up and shot to death by Gann during a staged robbery.
The killing was originally investigated as a home invasion robbery but when Hansen’s version of the incident changed, she was taken into custody and questioned.
A confession videotaped by San Diego Police swayed jurors in her trial.
