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SALT LAKE CITY — A Duchesne County man has been ordered to at least 15 years and up to life in prison in the 2016 shooting death of his father.

A jury earlier this month found James Hudson Main Jr. guilty of murder, a first-degree felony, and a judge sentenced him Monday in Duchesne's 8th District Court. His attorney said he plans to appeal the conviction.

"We respect the jury's decision," his lawyer, Jonathan Nish, said Tuesday without elaborating. "We're disheartened by it."

Main, now 36, was arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado, in October 2016 after he led officers on a pair of high-speed chases, according to police.

The 56-year-old James Main Sr. had called police to report his son had stolen his gun and disappeared into the mountains near his home. Police later found the father deceased with two gunshot wounds, court documents say.

Prosecutors had filed additional gun and kidnapping charges against Main but later removed them.

Main's family has previously said he suffered from mental illness and they sought to get him help from police and hospitals in the days before the slaying.

Main was originally charged with aggravated murder, which carries a possible death sentence if convicted. But a judge declined to move the case forward on that charge after a preliminary hearing, reducing it instead to murder.

Main will serve a consecutive sentence of five years and up to life on a conviction of assaulting another person while in jail, a third-degree felony.

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