Donald E. Griffin "crossed the line" when he leaned out a second-story window at his family's East Side home and fired a handgun at the back of a fleeing intruder 16 months ago, a Franklin County judge said yesterday. "You became a killer," Common Pleas Judge Pat Sheeran told Griffin.

Donald E. Griffin �crossed the line� when he leaned out a second-story window at his family�s East Side home and fired a handgun at the back of a fleeing intruder 16 months ago, a Franklin County judge said yesterday.

�You became a killer,� Common Pleas Judge Pat Sheeran told Griffin.

Sheeran sentenced him to four years in prison for the shooting death of 29-year-old Quenton A. Savage and to an additional 11 months in an unrelated case for carrying a concealed weapon.

Griffin, 21, had �every legal right� to confront Savage with a gun when he discovered the burglar in a second-floor bedroom on Oct.17, 2012, Sheeran said.

�But once Mr. Savage dived out the window, your legal right to shoot him went out with it.�

Griffin, who remained free while the case was pending, was escorted to jail by deputies after the hearing.

Although Griffin has continued to maintain that he began firing in self-defense during a confrontation in the bedroom, the physical evidence showed that he was leaning out the window when he fired all seven rounds at Savage, who had jumped and landed face down on a concrete patio.

Three shots struck Savage in the back outside the house at 3117 Easthaven Dr. S. Police found all of the shell casings outside.

Griffin pleaded guilty in November to voluntary manslaughter. A conviction at trial for the charge, which included a gun specification, would have meant a mandatory sentence of at least six years. By pleading to the charge without a gun specification, Griffin was eligible for probation or as few as three years in prison.

Sheeran said he will consider an application for judicial release after Griffin has served two years. Whether he approves early release will depend on Griffin�s behavior in prison, he said.

Defense attorney Jonathan Tyack urged the judge to place his client on probation. He said Savage initiated the incident and Griffin�s decision to fire �was an emotional response, a reactive response. There was no time for calculated thought.�

Savage�s mother, April Savage-Hines, told the judge that Griffin has been bragging about what he did and posted a rap song, Voluntary Manslaughter, about the incident on the Internet.

The judge was concerned enough about the song, which Assistant Prosecutor Doug Stead also mentioned, to take a lunch break during which he tried unsuccessfully to find it online.

Tyack said the song, while �in poor taste,� merely told the story from Griffin�s point of view.

Griffin gave a lengthy apology in court, telling Savage�s mother that he hasn�t bragged about the incident.

�I�m very sorry for what happened to your son,� he said. �I wish it had never happened. That�s from my heart.�

Savage-Hines sobbed on the shoulder of Amy Pridday, a victim�s advocate for the prosecutor�s office, as Griffin spoke.

Last month, Griffin�s mother was sentenced to five years in prison for planting evidence in an attempt to help him prove self-defense. Cynthia D. Preston, 43, pleaded guilty in November to tampering with evidence and obstructing justice. She was accused of putting blood, or something resembling blood, on sheer curtains hanging in the window.

Griffin was charged with carrying a concealed weapon after he ran and tossed a handgun into a backyard when officers approached a group of men on Margaret Avenue on the North Side to investigate a report of suspicious activity on Sept. 2.

On Dec. 12, while awaiting sentencing in the two cases, Griffin was shot six times as he and another man sat in a sport-utility vehicle on Centner Lane, a dead-end street on the East Side. He arrived at yesterday�s hearing in a wheelchair and used a cane to reach the defense table as a result of injuries that still are being treated.

No arrests have been made in that shooting.

jfutty@dispatch.com