Erik Verduzco

Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles jail shortly after midnight on Monday, after having served a total of 365 days in the Los Angeles Central Jail. This included his time served while incarcerated during his trial and while awaiting sentencing.

Mehserle was convicted in July, 2010, for involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of unarmed BART passenger Oscar Grant on New Years Eve 2009. Last November, he was sentenced to two years behind bars. The trial prompted protests in Oakland when Mehserle was not convicted of a more serious charge or given a longer sentence.

On Friday, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry ruled that Mehserle should be released on June 13 because of his credits for time served and good behavior. He was given one day of “good time” credit for each day served, for a total of 366 days of credits.

According to Luis Patino, a communications spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the state considers Mehserle’s sentence fully served. “We have no leeway to hold someone beyond the time that have served their full sentence,” Patino said. “Under the law, he served his full sentence.”

Patino said state law considers Mehserle’s conviction for involuntary manslaughter a nonviolent offense, which made him eligible for receiving credit for good behavior while incarcerated. According to Patino, the largest reduction in sentencing time that a person with Mehserle’s type of conviction can get is fifty percent.

“This a very common thing that happens with everyone,” Patino said, and stressed that Mehserle’s case “is not early release.”

Jonathon Simon, a law professor who specializes in criminal justice at UC Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law, agrees with Patino. “It is not surprising that Mehserle was released earlier than the formal sentence announced,” said Simon.

Simon said that if the had jury convicted Mehserle of second degree murder—meaning that if the jury had found that he killed Grant either intentionally or with extreme recklessness—he would not be eligible for parole for at least 15 years. But because Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, which means that a jury found that he did not intend to kill Grant, a determinate sentence of as little as three years was available.

Also, Simon said, California has a gun enhancement law that could have added five or more years to Mehserle’s sentence because he killed Grant with a gun, but the judge chose not to apply it.

“His case exemplifies how arbitrary criminal law can be,” Simon said referring to how a small difference in the verdict can make a big difference in time served.

“I am sympathetic to the feeling that many others have that Mehserle’s short sentence was incommensurate with his culpability,” Simon said. “Part of the function of the criminal law is to signal community outrage at a course of conduct, and that seems to have failed here.”