By JAY REEVES
Associated Press Writer
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.- A judge rejected a jury’s call for mercy and sentenced an admitted drug dealer to death Friday for the murders of three police officers gunned down as they entered a crack house.
Circuit Judge Tommy Nail said the horrors of his crime outweighed the jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment without parole for Kerry Spencer, 25.
“May God have mercy on your soul, sir,” Nail told Spencer as deputies led him away in shackles.
Relatives of the slain Birmingham officers cried and hugged.
“This was the only right thing to do for justice to be done,” said Bobbie Owen, widow of Officer Carlos Owen.
Owen, 58, and the two other officers, Harley Chisholm III, 40, and Charles Robert Bennett, 33, were shot to death on June 17, 2004. A fourth officer suffered a minor wound.
Jurors convicted Spencer of murder in June, but they voted a life term without parole. Under Alabama law, a judge can either accept the advice of a jury or override it.
Spencer gets an automatic appeal under state law.
Spencer, who admitted selling as much as $3,000 worth of crack a day from a filthy apartment in a poor neighborhood, confessed to killing the officers. He said he opened fire with an assault rifle out of fear when the men burst into the apartment to arrest Spencer’s friend, Nathaniel Woods, who is awaiting trial in the slayings.