HOMESTEAD, Pa. (AP) _ A Pittsburgh man blamed a white jury when he was sentenced to life in prison for gunning down a man outside a suburban restaurant, but the black judge who imposed the sentence told the man he had only himself to blame.
Thirty-seven-year-old Freedom Bey told Allegheny County Judge Joseph Williams III on Wednesday that he hadn't gotten a fair trial when he was convicted in July of killing Brendan Brooks in June 2008.
Bey and his attorney claimed the shooting was in self-defense for years of being terrorized and that a white jury couldn't understand an inner-city response to such a threat.
Prosecutors say Brooks was trying to calm down Bey who, instead, shot him twice outside an Eat 'n Park in West Homestead.
Williams told Bey that some laws transcend race and "To take another person's life is fundamentally wrong.''
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