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A Lincoln judge Thursday sentenced Kashuan McCree to 85 years to life in prison for the first-degree murder of an 18-year-old boy at a house party last year. 

A woman in the front row screamed and stormed out upon hearing McCree's sentence for Damien Brave's killing the night of March 31, 2023.

McCree, who looked almost bored, leaned back in his chair as the judge finished giving his sentence and, as he walked out, was heard to say: "I got that appeal, though."

His attorney, Tim Sullivan, had asked the judge to take into consideration that the 19-year-old McCree was a juvenile at the time in arguing for a sentence less than life because parts of juveniles' brains involved in behavior control aren't yet fully developed and lead to a proclivity for risk and inability to assess consequences. 

Because McCree was 17½ at the time of the killing, he qualified for a sentence between 40 years and life in prison because of a provision state lawmakers allowed for after the U.S. Supreme Court found automatic life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional in 2012. 

Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Ashley Bohnet said that if he had been 18, his sentence would have been life, the only possible sentence for adults convicted of first-degree murder. 

"To this day, the state does not understand how this dispute resulted in a shooting, does not understand how this dispute resulted in Damien's death," Bohnet said. 

She said Brave was a young man who was killed over something completely insignificant: $40 of marijuana and a backpack. McCree killed him because he thought he was entitled to his property and that he had disrespected him when he refused to give it. 

"Furthermore, the state cannot comprehend how Mr. McCree has shown no true remorse, no sympathy, no compassion or shame for his actions," Bohnet said. 

On the night of March 31, 2023, the sound of gunshots sent teens running from a house party at North 27th and Fair streets, just up the street from a police station.

Prosecutors said McCree had pulled out a gun during an argument over Brave's backpack. Brave tried to push the gun away and McCree fired.

Brave, who had been shot three times, was found crawling on the kitchen floor, bleeding, and was carried to a car that sped him to the hospital.

But by then it was too late.

He'd lost too much blood.

Not quite a week later, McCree was arrested for the murder in Detroit.

At trial, Bohnet called it an unprovoked, cold-blooded killing against Brave, who was unarmed.

On the other side, Sullivan suggested it may have been an accident and that Brave, in trying to pull the gun out of McCree's hand, may have caused the gun to fire. 

However, McCree never said it had gone off accidentally in his statement to police. And, afterward, he texted about getting a teardrop tattoo to show he'd killed someone.

In November, a jury found McCree guilty of first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit the crime.

In the pre-sentence investigation that followed, Bohnet said McCree didn't say a word about Brave or his family. 

In a letter to the judge, Jerry Brave, Damien's father, said that in many ways his life began the day his son was born and his life was turned inside out the day he was shot and killed. 

"From then, I will never be the same. And I can't get out of the sorrow I feel," Bohnet said, reading from his letter. "My son was my world."

He said no amount of justice will bring him back. 

Lancaster County District Judge Matthew Mellor said that while McCree was 17 when it happened, he had been "showing significant decision-making well before this offense occurred." 

He said he had seen zero remorse from McCree in court, and in a pre-sentence interview McCree had said he didn't like being disrespected. 

"This case is just that. Mr. Brave did not want to give you his backpack. You took it as disrespect. And you pulled a gun, and he still didn't relent, and you shot him," the judge said. "It's as simple as that in the court's eyes."