Burglar’s Killer Gets Charge Reduced

In an unusual move, a Superior Court judge threw out the second-degree murder conviction of a North Hollywood apartment house manager who shot a fleeing car burglar, reducing the offense to voluntary manslaughter and sentencing him to the minimum six years in prison.

Over the prosecutor’s protests that the crime was “a classic case of vigilantism,” Judge Sandy R. Kriegler said that although Daniel Bernard McDonald committed “an intentional killing,” he acted “without malice or forethought.”

McDonald, 46, who suffers from pancreatitis, faced 15 years to life when he was convicted Sept. 20. Instead, the judge sentenced him to the minimum three years for voluntary manslaughter plus the required three years for using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Just after 3 a.m. on Dec. 7, McDonald and his son Mark McDonald raced outside their apartment complex after hearing a car alarm. Minutes later, while his son tussled with a burglar, McDonald fired at two men as they jumped into a getaway car. Henry Lemus, 23, was hit and later died at a hospital.