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Judge grants bond while Trevor Dooley waits for new trial

Posted at 2:22 PM, Nov 30, 2016
and last updated 2016-12-01 17:29:06-05

A judge granted Trevor Dooley bond while he awaits a new trial.

Dooley was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of David James.

He was also convicted of improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon or firearm and open carrying of a weapon.

RELATED | Petition aims to keep Trevor Dooley behind bars

In 2010, Dooley and James got into an argument over a teenager skateboarding on a basketball court.

The argument lead to Dooley shooting James in front of his then 8-year-old daughter.

"We spent many years working with this, trying to get him into jail to begin with and just the fact that knowing that he had a chance to get out and live a life again just makes me angry," the victim's daughter Danielle James said earlier this year.

Dooley was serving an eight year sentence before the judge's ruling.

Kanina Eurez, Jame's widow wasn't surprised by the ruling and was extremely disappointed.

She's been in the same situation before, when a judge allowed Dooley out on bond before his new trial. 

"He has just been given chance after chance after chance and its -to us- its taken advantage of…of the legal system," Eurez said. "You'd think after all of these years of going though this over and over it would get easier to deal with but it's not." 

She's mostly concerned about having to explain Dooley's release to their daughter, who was there when her dad was shot. 

"She's going to be terrified," said Eurez, "She has nightmares that he's going to come hunt her down. I try to tell her that that's not real rational thinking, but those are the things that run through her mind after this." 

While Eurez doesn't think that will happen, she doesn't think Dooley deserves a second chance. 

"As American citizens, we have a set of rights. We live by those, but in the same token there are ways to abuse the legal system, which I believe is what he's doing," she said. "He now gets to go home and spend all of the holidays with his family."

She thinks even if he is granted a second trial, a jury will convict him as they did before. 

It's thinking about his time out of jail as he waits for that chance, that really bothers her. 

"That's really disheartening," she said, " to know that he'll have all those happy times with them and we'll never have that ever again." 

According to the owner of Riverview Bail Bonds, the earliest Dooley will be released is Thursday.