Wednesday, April 14, 1999

Teen pleads guilty in man's stabbing death

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Charged reduced; boy sentenced to three years

BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Michael Chandler, 15, stands with his attorney, Martin Pinales. (Yoni Pozner photos) | ZOOM |

        Michael Chandler stared at the floor Tuesday as prosecutors described how the 15-year-old boy stabbed to death a stranger in his front yard.

        After calling police for help, they said, the teen-ager ran outside with a butcher's knife.

        “It don't make no sense,” said the victim's mother, sitting in the back of the courtroom.

        “It don't make no sense at all.”

        Judge Patrick Dinkelacker expressed similar sentiments a few minutes later when he sentenced Mr. Chandler to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

        The sentence came after Mr. Chandler agreed to plead guilty in exchange for prosecutors dropping a murder charge against him.

Antonio Shafer's family reacts outside the courtroom. | ZOOM |

        Mr. Chandler, who was 14 at the time of the offense, was accused of stabbing 20-year-old Antonio Shafer once in the chest during an Oct. 1 street fight.

        Judge Dinkelacker described the plea agreement as the best way to resolve a difficult case.

        “This really kind of touches me,” said the judge, noting that he has children about Mr. Chandler's age.

        “But someone died because of what you did,” the judge said.

        The teen's attorney, Martin Pinales, said his client decided to accept the plea deal because he would have faced a possible life sentence if he had been convicted of murder.

        Mr. Pinales said Mr. Chandler was not trying to kill anyone.

        He said the teen-ager intended only to defend his uncle, who was being punched and kicked in the front yard of the house.

        “This is not a stabbing meant to kill,” Mr. Pinales said in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. “It was a stabbing meant to stop the kicking and stomping.”

        Prosecutors said the trouble began at a Northside bar near Mr. Chan dler's home on Witler Street.

        They said the fight, which involved dozens of people, spilled into the street and eventually reached Mr. Chandler's front lawn.

        Prosecutor Daniel Reif said the teen briefly spoke on the phone with police before rushing outside with the knife. Mr. Pinales said the stab wound proved fatal even though it was only about 1¹/₂ inches deep.

        Mr. Chandler will serve his sentence in a state prison but will be segregated from adult inmates.

       

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