U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin on Monday dismissed on multiple grounds testimony by NYPD officer Peter Liang from his 2014 manslaughter trial. Prosecutors offered up the testimony in hopes of supporting their contention that Liang intended to shoot by accident, with the gun going off accidentally through a stairwell malfunction.
Liang’s lawyers had countersued over the evidence, arguing that the testimony by the 22-year-old was unreliable and that the fatal wound could have been caused by projectiles lodged in the walls during a training exercise.
The failed cross-examination of Liang’s testimony is the fourth time a judge has rejected the case based on insufficient evidence, since jury selection began. At the time of sentencing Liang was receiving a sentence of four years’ probation and community service, a result of statements at trial by Liang’s defense saying that he was remorseful and “more grateful than ever to God.”
Scheindlin, who approved a series of sentences ranging from one to six years in prison for the defendant, rejected that claim on Monday. She wrote:
In my view, the probationary sentence is unwarranted and is not permitted by the law, as was I ordered to do, to be imposed solely on the basis of what [Liang] thinks, thinks or believes to be true at the time of the crime and during the trial proceedings.
Her ruling comes a day after Liang was not re-indicted by a grand jury.