Capping a morning of impassioned defense pleas and emotional victim-impact statements, Judge Michael E. Pastor passed down sentences for second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, respectively, on Michael Sheridan and his wife, Angela, for the 2007 Mother's Day slaying of musician Rod Poole. Pool, 45, had confronted the pair after Angela Sheridan, then 24, bumped a busboy as she maneuvered her car in the Hollywood parking lot of Mel’s Diner. Within moments of exchanging words with Ms. Sheridan, Poole was on the ground while she kicked his head and her husband, then 25, stabbed him half a dozen times. (See June 14, 2007 L.A. Weekly feature.) Michael’s mother and his two-year-old son remained in the car.

Pastor threw the proverbial book at Michael Sheridan, giving him an indeterminate sentence of 15 years to life in state prison, and for good measure tossed on three years for a probation violation; the sentences will run consecutively but will, said his attorney, Alba Marrero, be appealed. Angela received a “mid-base term” of three years; however, with 771 days of custody credits, she will be free in less than a year. She and her attorney, Jana Seng, seemed satisfied, although the prevailing mood in a courtroom filled with supporters of victims and perpetrators alike was gloom.

“What sane person,” Poole’s widow, Lisa, asked the court, “carries a knife in their car on Mother’s Day, with their child and their mother in the car?”

Judge Proctor had no answer, other than to say that Mr. Sheridan’s “conduct is egregious beyond words. It’s cowardly and presents a danger to society.”

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