Rice up for parole next year

Braden Rice

AURORA | A man sentenced to six years in prison Monday for a July 4, 2009 slaying in north Aurora will be eligible for parole in May 2012, prison records show. 

Braden Rice, 20, will get his first parole hearing in February 2012, according to Colorado Department of Corrections records posted online. 

If the parole board rejects Rice’s release and he serves his entire six year sentence, Rice will be released May 25, 2015, when he is 25. 

Rice, 20, was convicted last fall of reckless manslaughter for the July 4, 2009 slaying of MacWinston Dowthard, 40, outside a north Aurora apartment complex.

Prosecutors charged Rice with first-degree murder, arguing he “executed” Dowthard that night at the Sage Creek Apartments. 

But two juries balked at that charge, first a hung jury last spring and again last fall when a jury convicted Rice only of the lesser charge of reckless manslaughter. 

That charge carried a maximum sentence of six years in prison, which a judge gave Rice on Monday. 

According to prison records, Rice has yet to be transferred from the Adams County Jail, where he has been held since July 2009, to a DOC facility.