White gets maximum sentence

Los Angeles Times

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SAN FRANCISCO Dan White was given the maximum sentence yesterday for his voluntary manslaughter convictions in the shooting deaths of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk seven years, eight months in state prison.

"The 32-year-old former supervisor was transported immediately to the California Medical Facility at Vacaville for screening before

prison officials determine where he will be permanently housed.

White's lawyer, Douglas Schmidt, described his client as a special security risk because his case involved "high emotion" and because, as an ex-policeman, he might face reprisals from other inmates.

Superior Court Judge Walter F. Calcagno ordered that White be given credit for the seven months he has spent in the San Francisco County Jail since the killings. He

'could be eligible for parole after five years.

The judge said he was imposing the maximum term allowable by law because of the seriousness of the crime and because White "may be a danger to himself" and, therefore, "a danger to society."

Schmidt later said White, who shot Moscone, 50, and Milk, 48, in their City Hall offices last Nov. 27, was suicidal and "remorseful and guilt-ridden.”

The surprisingly lenient verdict returned by the White jury on May 21 touched off a night of gaydominated rioting and violence at San Francisco City Hall. A handful of demonstrators, most of them homosexual, marched outside the Hall of Justice during the sentencing. They chanted, "He got away with murder."

Milk had been elected by this city's large homosexual community as San Francisco's first openly gay public official.

The prosecution had sought first-degree murder convictions and the death penalty, but Schmidt succeeded in convincing the jury of seven women and five men that White suffered from "diminished capacity" at the time of the shootings. They stemmed from a political dispute with the two victims over White's resignation from, and later effort to be reinstated on, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (city council).

White never denied shooting the two officials. But his lawyer argued that he was under such severe mental strain that he should not be held accountable for what he did.