Ex-Cop Gets Jail For Beating Death

Former police officer Larry Nevers was sentenced to seven to 15 years in prison Tuesday for the involuntary manslaughter conviction in the 1992 death of a motorist, Malice Green, who was outside a suspected crack house.

With credit for time served, the maximum sentence was 15 years in prison. Nevers, who had lung surgery last year, exhaled and bowed his head when Wayne County Circuit Judge Ulysses Boykin read the sentence.

The four years that Nevers already served was on a second-degree murder conviction in the death of Malice Green. But a federal appeals court in December 1997 ordered a retrial based on jury prejudice. Nevers was convicted of manslaughter April 18.

Before the judge handed down the sentence, Nevers asked for leniency, saying that he was a model police officer during his 24-year career and encountered Green by mere fate.

"The remorse I feel about the death of Malice Green ... deals with the true enemy of the community: cocaine," said Nevers.

"Whether Malice Green's family believes it or not, I have great remorse that Malice Green died on my shift," he said, choking back tears. "It was a useless death."

In asking for mercy today, Nevers said he suffers from emphysema and is battling lung cancer.

"My career is over and I have to live with the knowledge that some people believe I'm a disgraced cop," he said. "Whatever time I have left, I would like to spend it with my family."

Nevers and partner Walter Budzyn stopped Green, a 35-year-old unemployed steelworker, outside a suspected crack house in Detroit on Nov. 5, 1992. The officers said they used the needed force to subdue Green.

But, prosecutors said Nevers broke the law when he used unreasonable force and struck Green's head 14 times with a heavy flashlight. Defense attorney Neil Fink said cocaine contributed to Green's death.

Although no testimony indicated race was a factor in Green's death, the Detroit case was compared with the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles because Nevers and Budzyn are white and Green was black.

Following Nevers' involuntary manslaughter conviction last month, Fink said he hoped Nevers also would be credited for time served. He had originally been sentenced to 12 to 25 years in prison.

Budzyn was also convicted in 1993 of second-degree murder. He was retried and convicted in 1998 of involuntary manslaughter, then was freed after the judge sentenced him to time already served.

Budzyn's first conviction was overturned in 1997 by the Michigan Supreme Court, which ruled that his jury was unfairly influenced by being shown Malcolm X -- a movie containing footage of the King beating by Los Angeles police -- during a break in deliberations.