Peyton Wiser’s defense attorney described his client as a kind, gentle teen who took in injured animals and homeless friends when they needed help.

But the prosecution said Wiser also sold marijuana and, when confronted for selling bad product, chose to shoot a man twice in the head instead of running away.

While defense attorney James Wymard asked the court to give his client a sentence of less than two years behind bars, Assistant District Attorney Alison Bragle argued that Wiser should go to state prison for seven to 14 years.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Anthony M. Mariani settled for a spot in the middle on Monday, ordering Wiser, 18, of McKees Rocks, to serve three to six years in state prison. Wiser previously pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Wiser had been walking to a store in Stowe on the afternoon of May 3, 2020, when he was attacked.

Police said Tiawaun Henley was angry at Wiser for selling Henley’s girlfriend what he thought was a bad batch of marijuana several weeks earlier.

Witnesses said that Henley, who was 26 and weighed twice as much as the then-16-year-old Wiser, threw the teen to the ground and punched him repeatedly. Wiser testified at his plea hearing that Henley also wrapped a belt around his neck to strangle him.

Wiser was able to push Henley off him, and started to run, but Henley caught up to him. It was then that Wiser said a gun Henley had in a bag fell out and landed on the street.

Wiser picked it up and started firing. He emptied it, striking Henley twice in the head. He died the next day.

Wymard argued to Mariani that his client was afraid for his life and fired in self-defense.

Bragle told the court that once Wiser had the gun, he had a duty to retreat.

The two were no longer engaged in a fistfight, she said.

“He never saw Tiawaun Henley with any type of weapon,” Bragle said.

She added that after Wiser fired the shots, he didn’t seek help or call 911.

“He rummages the body, takes his items and flees,” Bragle said.

Wiser, who took the gun with him, turned himself in the next day.

Bragle said that his actions point toward consciousness of guilt.

“They do not support a scared kid afraid for his life.”

Throughout the hearing, Wiser, his witnesses and his attorney tried to show that what happened on May 3, 2020, was an anomaly — that Wiser had been doing a favor for a friend in providing the drugs.

Mariani didn’t buy that argument.

“We have a man dead over $100 worth of marijuana,” the judge said. “Going to get somebody their weed is not minimal when someone dies over it.”

Mariani told the packed courtroom that out of his last 13 homicide trials, 11 involved drugs, and nine of those were over marijuana.

The prosecution submitted several victim impact statements from Henley’s family.

A’monakei Alexander, who has three children with Henley, said she lost her best friend.

“(The children) still talk about him every day like he is still here,” she said.

Tawanda Henley, the victim’s mother, told the court that she felt “an overwhelming abundance of all the worst things you can feel.”

She described her son as a man who loved to sing and dance and was always “all smiles and giggles.”

He was certified in HVAC and was working on a music career.

“His good definitely outweighed his bad,” she said.

Several people spoke on Wiser’s behalf, describing him as a kind young man who nursed injured animals back to health.

His father, Edward Wiser, told the court that he raised his son to be a good person.

“He’s never hurt anyone. He had no bad intentions to hurt someone,” he said. “He was raised in a house with love.”

Peyton Wiser spoke on his own behalf before being sentenced.

“This is not the man I am,” he said. “I know I put myself in this predicament.”

He told the judge that he regrets his actions, and that it is particularly hard for him knowing that Henley’s three children will grow up without their father.

“This wasn’t something supposed to happen,” he said. “I was wrong. I understand that I was wrong. There was no time to sit and think and contemplate.

“I was 16.”

Wiser told the court that the incident happened in seconds, and he wishes that a passserby would have intervened in the initial fight.

“I’ve been waiting to say sorry for a very long time,” Peyton Wiser said.

He told the court, “I’m lucky enough to be in this jail cell and still be alive, and I’m so sorry they don’t have the same thing.

“I wish the situation wasn’t to have his mom up here crying. I wish the situation wasn’t to have my dad up here crying. I wish I wasn’t up here crying.”

Although Mariani acknowledged that it was Henley’s actions that day that started the entire incident, he told Wiser, “It still was a fistfight. In the end, you shot every bullet out of that gun.”

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