They raised bail money and wrote letters attesting to Herrin's "good character" to the trial judge.
[1] Judge Richard J. Daronco presided over the highly publicized trial at the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains.
Richard Herrin was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, rather than second degree murder and was sentenced to the maximum penalty under the law.
He served 17 years in state prison at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, and was released on January 12, 1995.
[citation needed] Herrin was born to an Irish father and a Mexican mother in an ethnic minority community in Los Angeles.
[4] Critics charged that the sentence was the result of the Yale community and, in particular, the Catholic chaplaincy uniting to support Herrin by portraying him as the victim of his upbringing in a minority neighborhood barrio in Los Angeles.