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Wayne County Sheriff's deputies bring Leroy Moon into the courtroom of Judge Cynthia Hathaway on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 in Detroit. Moon has been sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting another man in the back, six years after his manslaughter conviction. Moon pleaded no contest in 2011, but he wasn't sentenced until Wednesday. The prosecutor's office says it lost track. The judge says she's still not certain what happened. (Daniel Mears/Detroit News via AP)
lessWayne County Sheriff's deputies bring Leroy Moon into the courtroom of Judge Cynthia Hathaway on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 in Detroit. Moon has been sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting another man
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Leroy Moon, with defense attorney Marlon Evans, appears before Judge Cynthia Hathaway on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 in Detroit. Moon has been sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting another man in the back, six years after his manslaughter conviction. Moon pleaded no contest in 2011, but he wasn't sentenced until Wednesday. The prosecutor's office says it lost track. The judge says she's still not certain what happened. (Daniel Mears/Detroit News via AP)
lessLeroy Moon, with defense attorney Marlon Evans, appears before Judge Cynthia Hathaway on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 in Detroit. Moon has been sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting another man in the
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Mildred Bryant, wife of the slain Shawn Johnson, speaks before the court and Leroy Moon on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in Detroit. Moon was sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting Johnson in the back, six years after his manslaughter conviction. Moon pleaded no contest in 2011, but he wasn't sentenced until Wednesday. The prosecutor's office says it lost track. The judge says she's still not certain what happened. (Daniel Mears/Detroit News via AP)
lessMildred Bryant, wife of the slain Shawn Johnson, speaks before the court and Leroy Moon on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in Detroit. Moon was sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting Johnson in the back,
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Mildred Bryant, wife of Shawn Johnson, walks past Leroy Moon, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in court in Detroit. Moon was sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting Johnson in the back, six years after his manslaughter conviction. Moon pleaded no contest in 2011, but he wasn't sentenced until Wednesday. The prosecutor's office says it lost track. The judge says she's still not certain what happened. (Daniel Mears/Detroit News via AP)
lessMildred Bryant, wife of Shawn Johnson, walks past Leroy Moon, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, in court in Detroit. Moon was sentenced to a year in jail for fatally shooting Johnson in the back, six years after his
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Detroit man gets very late sentence for manslaughter
DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit man who fatally shot another man in the back was finally sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail, six years after his manslaughter conviction and amid a lot of head-scratching about how his case was forgotten for so long.
"I don't know how it happened," Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway said.
Leroy Moon, now 78, shot Shawn Johnson, who had urinated outside his fish market in 2009. He pleaded no contest to manslaughter in 2011 after two murder trials ended without a verdict.
The deal called for a year in jail, but Moon never was sentenced. Health problems caused some delays in his return to court, but the prosecutor's office admits that it also lost track. The Detroit News discovered that there had been no sentence.
Defense attorney Marlon Evans said Moon is taking some responsibility, too, because he failed to appear for a pre-sentence interview with courthouse staff. He mostly has been free on bond since the no-contest plea.
"The delay that occurred in this situation, I believe, was a mistake by everybody," the judge said.
Johnson's widow, Mildred Bryant, said she didn't know that Moon hadn't been sentenced and cried when she recently saw his face on television.
Bryant recalled the day that her 36-year-old husband was killed. She said they had a flat tire near Moon's fish market. An argument turned physical and Johnson was shot.
"You took my best friend, my soul mate and my daily smile," Bryant, 44, told Moon.
Moon repeatedly said he was "truly sorry." The judge followed the one-year sentence in the plea deal and said Moon could leave jail to work during the day.
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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap
