Woman Convicted of Manslaughter in Shooting Death of Attorney Boyfriend

A  woman who worked as barber at a shop catering to Rossmoor residents has been  convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of her attorney boyfriend.

Rennie Pratt, 29, had been charged with murder in the 2009 killing of Michael Porcella, 36, who was an attorney in a prominent Oakland defense firm, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.  The shooting happened in a home the two shared in the 3700 block of Laguna Avenue in Oakland. 

Police told both the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle that the April 2009 killing was the culmination of a series of domestic disputes involving the couple, who had been living together about six months and known each other for more than a year.

The Chronicle reports that an Alameda County jury convicted Pratt Thursday of voluntary manslaughter and an enhancement for using a gun. She faces a sentence of anywhere from three to 21 years. 

Prosecutor Jill Nerone told the Chronicle that Porcella was outside on the porch when he was shot. The jury believed Pratt's story that she didn't lie in wait for Porcella but that she accidentally shot him as she was trying to unload the weapon. 

The Chronicle said: "The jury ruled out the accidental-discharge theory but could not dismiss the possibility of 'imperfect self-defense,'in which someone overreacts and attacks a perceived aggressor when in fact the target intends no harm." 

The Tribune earlier reported that Pratt is the mother of three children, who were living with their father in Central California at the time of the shooting. Porcella, a graduate of St. Mary's College in Moraga and the Golden Gate University School of Law, worked in an Oakland criminal defense firm. But prior to his death he had been laid off for economic reasons.