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Penn Hills man sentenced to serve up to 10 years in prison in 2018 Uniontown shooting

By Mark Hofmann mhofmann@heraldstandard.Com 2 min read
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A Penn Hills man was sentenced up to 10 years in prison for fatally shooting a Uniontown man last year.

Fayette County Judge Nancy Vernon sentenced Tyree “Bricc” Smith, 23, to serve 60 to 120 months for voluntary manslaughter in the May 2018 shooting death of Richard Hinton, 28.

Prosecutors said Smith shot Hinton while at a Dunlap Street, Uniontown home.

Hinton’s sister, Tineia Pennix, offered a statement on behalf of Hinton’s family, whom she said have been in unbearable pain since his death.

“The lives of my family were forever changed,” Pennix said.

She said their mother has been especially heartbroken because she’s lost a child she loved more than herself.

Pennix remembered Hinton as a sincere, loyal, genuine, brave and caring person. His death, she said, both emotionally broke their family and drew them closer to one another.

She asked that Smith’s sentence run consecutively with a Beaver County sentence for discharging a firearm in an occupied structure conviction. Smith pleaded guilty and was sentenced in that case before his September homicide trial in Fayette County.

Smith’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Michael Aubele, asked Vernon to sentence Smith concurrently to the Beaver County sentence. He argued that the facts of the case showed that Smith was acting in self-defense because Hinton was there to kill Smith.

However, Assistant District Attorney Meghann Mikluscak disagreed, contending that the jury’s manslaughter verdict showed they did not believe the self-defense argument.

Vernon agreed with Mikluscak, stating that the jury’s verdict did not support a finding of self-defense. The judge noted Smith’s “alarming” prior record involving firearms, running the sentence consecutively to the 42-to-84-month sentence imposed in Beaver County.

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