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SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 27, 1985Daily f NewsBy BRUCE ROLFSENDaily News Staff WriterJames D. Graham was sentenced Friday to life in prison without possibility of parole for shooting to death his estranged wife in the ladies’ room of a Mary Esther restaurant.Circuit Judge Erwin Fleet handed down the life sentence,even though prosecutors had recommended a 30-year termand Graham’s defense attorney had asked for no more than 17 years.After the sentencing, Graham declared he was not “some kind of monster.”The slaying occurred last Nov. 5 when Graham shot his wife, 21-year-old Bonnie Ix*e Graham, inside Season’s Friendly Eating on I ’.S. Highway 98 He then shot himself in the head with the same pistol, but survived.In December a grand jury indicted Graham on a charge of first-degree murder On May 16 Graham pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of second-degree murder Before Fleet pronounced sentence Friday, Assistant Public Defender T Michael Johnson cited Graham’s “exemplary service record in the Air Force and said that except for traffic violations and a childhood arrest for shoplifting. Johnson had never been in trouble with the law“If the state sentencing guidelines have anything to do with a homicide case, this is what it is for. Johnson said.Chief Assistant State Attorney Drew Pinkerton countered: “Mr. Graham divorced himself with a gun and imposed the ultimate judgment on her (his wife).”When the slaying occurred, the 26-year-old Graham was an Air Force sergeant stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City Graham and his wife, w ho were married in 1983. had separated in 1984. At the time of the separationGraham was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base.Fleet told Graham on Friday that evidence proved “you left your place of residence with the intention to take the life of your wife.”Fleet called the murder “gruesome” and said Graham had shown “a disregard for others” because bystanders at the restaurant could have been shot.The maximum 17-year sentence provided for in state guidelines was “wholly insufficient to provide retribution” or to serve as a “necessary deterrent,” Fleet declared.Fleet then sentenced Graham to the state prison system “for the remainder of your natural life.”Johnson argued that the sentence was “cruel and unusualpunishment.”“The court by this sentencing has precluded him (Graham) from ever having parole.” Johnson told Fleet Ironically, the sentence Graham received was stiffer than the sentence he would’ve received had he pleaded to the original first-degree murder charge, Johnson said.Because the death penalty in Graham’s case was ruled out while he was facing the first-degree charge, Johnson explained. Graham would have been better off pleading to that charge. If Graham had been convicted of first-degree murder, the maximum sentence he faced was lift* in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years Fleet reminded Johnson that when Graham pleaded no contest to the second-degree charge, he was advised that life without parole was one of the possible sentences With Fleet clearly not backing down from the life sentence, Graham, for the first time Friday spoke in hisown defense“In these hearings the prosecutors have portrayed myself as some kind of monster I am not,” Graham told the judgeFleet’s decision brought immediate objections from Assistant Public Defender Johnson, who vowed to appeal(See Graham — page 2B)JAMES D GRAHAM
Newspaper Details
Fort Walton Beach Playground Daily News
Fort Walton Beach, Florida, US
Sat, Jul 27, 1985
Page 11
Full Page
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USA 15 May 2020
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