Asipeli Mohi said it wasn't for the sake of his gang, his safety or his pride that he shot and killed Aaron Chapman three years ago outside the Triad Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
It was "stupidity," he said.Mohi appeared before the state Board of Pardons and Parole Tuesday morning for his first parole hearing since pleading guilty to murder, a first degree felony.
Mohi didn't offer much of a `why' for his crime, but he did apologize.
"What I say can never bring Aaron back," Mohi said. "I'm sorry for what I did. I take full responsibility . . . . It's too bad it's taken all of this for me to realize all I've lost and all the pain I've caused."
His apology was no comfort to the Chapmans.
"I think he's sorry he got caught," Dolores Chapman, Aaron's mother, said. She told board chairman Mike Sibbett that she wished Mohi could never be set free.
"Car thieves, robbers and drug dealers get more (time behind bars) than killers," she said. "It's not love that I wake up to every day, it's a broken heart."
Mohi's crime was a first degree felony, but because of a plea agreement, a judge sentenced him as if his crime were a second degree felony. The maximum amount of time Mohi can spend in prison is 15 years. The judge who sentenced him recommended Mohi serve all 15 years.
"That's going to be a pretty hard request to ignore," Sibbett told Mohi. Sibbett made no decision in the case Tuesday, but he warned Mohi not to expect much leniency.
"I don't pretend to understand how you feel," Sibbett said. "I do feel compelled to tell all of the gang members still running around on the streets thinking gang life is glamorous that it's not. It's a dead end. You'll end up dead or in prison."
Sibbett reminded Mohi that it was his violent act that pushed the Legislature to change the way Utah deals with young criminals.
"If there was a single crime that caused the governor and the Legislature to say enough is enough, it was probably this offense," Sibbett said. He added that the state's citizens felt threatened because of the random and senseless nature of the killing.
After Chapman's death, the Legislature met in a special session and changed a number of Utah laws dealing with juvenile criminals. Since that two-day session, juvenile crime has been a priority of lawmakers and the governor.
All of this does little to ease the heartache of Dolores Chapman.
"Even pictures don't help anymore," she said. "They only remind me of what I've lost."
And despite the money spent and laws passed, Dolores Chapman noted that on the same day she begged the board not to let Mohi out of prison early, another mother was burying her son, who was shot and killed on the third anniversary of Aaron's death by another teen for what appears to be no reason at all.
"We have crime, but where's the justice?" She asked. "It's all tipped in favor of the criminal. It's time to bring things back into balance."