In the latest chapter in a four-and-a-half-year-old Nevada County murder case, a terminally-ill suspect has been sentenced. District Attorney Cliff Newell says 34-year-old Daniel Devencenzi had pleaded guilty, in April of last year, to a reduced charge of manslaughter, instead of murder, and sentenced to 11 years in prison. That was in exchange for testifying against the suspected triggerman, 29-year-old Finley Fultz, in the shooting death of Isaac Zafft, a marijuana grow caretaker, in Penn Valley…

But Newell expects the sentence to be appealed. That’s after state voters, in November, approved a change in the murder law, that no longer allows accomplices to be charged with murder…

34-year-old Nathan Philbrook agreed to a similar deal around the same time, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. That sentence is already being appealed. Meanwhile, a hearing is scheduled for January 11th on whether Fultz should stay in jail, pending the appeal of a ruling by the judge that threw out the murder charge, after a mistrial had also been declared. The judge said prosecutors mishandled evidence.