Johnson sentenced to 55 years for negligent homicide

A Havre man was sentenced in state district court for the second charge after being convicted for the second time of negligent homicide in the shooting death of his brother.

Shane Clark Johnson, born in 1968, was convicted of negligent homicide in 2014 in the Nov. 9, 2013, death of his brother, Travis Johnson, and was convicted of the offense again June 15 after a six-day trial in District Court in Havre.

Judge Matthew Cuffe sentenced Shane Johnson Friday to 50 years in Montana State Prison as a persistent felony offender with no time suspended followed by a five-year sentence for a weapons sentencing enhancement.

Cuffe credited Johnson with 2,827 days served and ordered him to pay $6449.76 in fees and trial costs, cost of assigned counsel and costs incurred to witnesses.

The prosecution said that the two had been drinking together upstairs in the house where they lived.

After Johnson and his brother got into an argument hat led to his brother striking Johnson and giving him a bloody nose, Johnson went downstairs to his bedroom, took out a case from under his bed and took a gun out of the case and began shooting at his brother.

Johnson’s defense argued that his brother, drunk and in a state of rage, was the one who took the gun from under the bed and Johnson followed him into his bedroom — the two lived in separate rooms in the basement of the house — to try to get the gun back. During the struggle, his brother was shot and he went back to his room and collapsed on his own bed in a state of shock, the defense said.

Johnson originally was charged with deliberate homicide but at the end of his 2014 trial the prosecution added the alternate charge of negligent homicide.

The 2014 jury found him not guilty of deliberate homicide but convicted him of negligent homicide.

Judge Daniel Bouche sentenced him to 50 years in prison as a persistent felony offender with 10 years suspended and added two years in a weapons sentencing enhancement.

Johnson appealed, arguing that that the court made errors in allowing the jury unrestricted access to all of the state’s testimonial audio and video exhibits during deliberations and by allowing the state to add a negligent homicide charge at the end of trial that was not included within the deliberate homicide charge for which the state tried Johnson.

The Supreme Court agreed that select errors had been made and overturned the verdict, sending the case back to District Court in Havre for the new trial.